MANITOBA.*

MISS FITZGIBBON commences her agreeable narrative at the moment of embarking on board the good ship 'Manitoba,' which was to carry her up Lake Huron to Saulte St. Marie, on the St. Mary River—the connecting link between Lakes Huron and Superior—and so by the Michigan Canal into Lake Superior. After leaving Fort William and Thunder Bay, the monotony of the water journey up Lake Superior was broken by the excitement of the passage through the ice-fields into Duluth, a town lying quite at the western extremity of Lake Superior. At Duluth the steam-boat was exchanged for the Northern. Pacific Railway, which runs through a grand country, watered by the St. Louis River and the infant Mississippi. A branch line carried the travellers across the prairie to Fisher's Land- ing, on the Red Lake River, where boat was again taken down Red Lake River into the Red River of the North, past the fron- tier town of Pembina, of Louis Riel celebrity, and so on to. Winnipeg, in British territory once more.

Of Winnipeg—where Miss Fitzgibbon made a year's stay- __

• A Trip to Manitoba. By Mary Fitzgibbon. London Richard Bentley and Son,.

one receives a very pleasant impression from this book. The prairie, city, with its mixed population of French Canadians, Indians, and half-breeds, with its prairie-rambles for summer, and its social gatherings, dances, theatricals, &c., in winter, affords matter for three pleasant chapters. Of the Icelandic colony at Gimli, sixty miles distant from Winnipeg—upon the lake of that name—we could have wished to hear more. Their industry notwithstanding, these interesting people do not make good colonists, owing chiefly to their lack of that stamina and adaptability to new conditions which are the first requisites of a good colonising race. In these respects they are far inferior to the inhabitants of the Mennonite settlement, which lies some twenty miles south-east of Winnipeg.

It was only on leaving Winnipeg that the real hardships of the journey commenced, with the waggon-journey across country to the Lake of the Woods. The horrors of the "corduroy road"— a road, that is to say, consisting of "round logs, loosely bound together and thrown down upon a marsh "—the perpetual sticking in the "muskeg," and the miserable quarters which had to be put up with, are detailed in lively colours. To this tale of misery a pleasant contrast is afforded by the glowing account of thf3 passage up the beautiful Lake of the Woods :—

" Floating almost duo north, over the smooth waters of the bay, we were soon on the Lake of the Woods. The scenery is very lovely ; island follows island. Some seem but a pile of moss-covered stone, every crevice filled with fern, blueberries, and wild juniper bushes ; others are great masses of rock, thoir perpendicular sides covered with curling-cariboo moss, and crowned with great pines ; others, again, have shelving, sandy shores, covered with tangled vines and bright-hued wild-flowers."

A day's steam through this beautiful scenery brought the travellers to Clearwater Bay, and after a night spent under canvas, their destination, upon the shores of Lake Deception, was reached on the following day.

The four chapters in which is described the somewhat mono- tonous life in the engineer's bead-quarters upon the banks of Lake Deception are quite the most amusing in the book. The interest does not lie so much in the personal narrative—though that is enlivened by a fire, and a few other episodes—as in the glimpses we get of the hard, but vigorous and hearty, life of the population of these outposts of civilisation.

The mixture of nationalities, by throwing the distinctive features of the various races into relief, gives occasion for many pleasant little touches of character-painting, of which Miss Fitzgibbon knows how to avail herself. The simplicity of the poor Swede, who will not accept gratuitous hospitality, and brings with him into the wilderness his high Scandinavian notions of probity and politeness ; the adventures of the cook, niclinamed " 7-10 " by the men, from her great size, and her camp being at 7-10 station ; and last, but not least, the char- acter of the old Irish gardener—" Governmint gardiner," as he is called in camp—are all described in a pleasant and sympa- thetic spirit. Naturally enough, the Irish element receives its full share of appreciation from Miss Fitzgibbon, and we should have been sorry had it been otherwise. Old Cahill, the gar- dener, with his curious mixture of folly and wisdom, and his truly

Irish faculty for blundering, could ill have been dispensed with. At one time he is caught in the act of carefully transplant- ing something from his hot-beds, which proves on investigation to be cress; at another time, having housed a skunk in the root-shed, he is with the greatest difficulty restrained from shooting this "fine prey," in total oblivion of the unpleasant

consequences that would ensue to the contents of the root- house. Being an Irishman, it is as much a matter of course that old Cahill should be the butt for all the practical jokers in camp as that he should himself be the best concoctor of a joke or story. The old man's character is rendered interesting also by a tincture of that true pride which usually enters into the com- position of the simplest natures, as instanced in the following episode:—

" The navvies called him the forest-ranger, because he always took the gun with him when he went for the cows, and each day as ho passed the shanties on his way back empty-handed they chaffed him about his want of spurt. One evening he returned as usual, apparently empty-handed •' but coming into the kitchen for the milk-pails, he produced from his pocket five partridges and four pigeons. When I asked him why he did not carry them to show the men that he did shoot something sometimes, he gave me a knowing look, and said, Shure, I wouldn't give them that satisfaction.' "

Miss Fitzgibbon, however, while giving us such amusing little sketches as this, does not lose sight of the sterner side of the picture. But even the passages in which the miseries of life on " the line" are glanced at, present, on the whole, a more pleasing and cheerful picture than we should have looked for.

We hear, it is true, of the almost perpetual peril of life and limb to which the parties engaged in blasting with nitro- glycerine are exposed, and of the still more appalling risks rim by the carriers engaged in transporting the fearful fluid on their backs over miles of the roughest road, knowing all the time that one false step may send them into eternity. But even this picture is relieved by the story of the poor fellow who, having been maimed and blinded from merely striking a rock upon which some nitro-glycerine had been spilt, was sent East with 10,000 dollars in his pocket, subscribed by his fellow- labourers.. There can be no doubt that the strict enforcement of the laws prohibiting the importation of spirits has great influence in staving-off the worst miseries of such a life. Of the odd situations which sometimes result from this strict enforcement Miss Fitzgibbon gives an amusing example. We shall only quote the finale. A man has been convicted of having some smuggled whiskey in his possession, and has been, after much delay, found guilty, and fined fifty dollars or a month in gaol. Now, the gaol is a hundred and odd miles off, and there are neither conveyances nor roads of any sort to take the man thither; so that his position is unassailable. "If I had the money," the man pleads, "I'd pay the fifty, and have done with it ; but, not having it, I can't do it. If I am to go to gaol, all right,—take me ; but whoever heard of a man walk- ing there of his own accord?" and he whittled away at the stick in his hand, feeling that he was master of the situation. The climax of absurdity, however, is reached when the constable, whose zeal had been aroused by the prospect of receiving half the flue, voluntarily forfeits his share of the money, in order to get the man off his hands. Not- withstanding such occasional hitches as this, there can be no doubt of the beneficial action of the prohibitory laws among a population containing so large a native Indian element, and so little amenable to police of any kind. Of the Indian popu- lation, Miss Fitzgibbon has little but good to toll. One is, perhaps, too apt to regard the advance of civilisation in America. as entailing the virtual extinction of the natives. That this must, in a great degree, be the case, is unfortunately too true ; but still, it is cheering to road such a description as that which Miss Fitzgibbon gives us of the Indian attendant, Youal Car- ribre. The infusion, too, of Indian blood among the early settlers in Winnipeg, appears to have resulted in a fine and dignified type of men and women. Indeed, the old Hudson Bay Company aristocracy of Winnipeg, pride themselves as much upon their Indian as upon their European descent. Of the kindness shown by the Indians to their animals, their shrewdness in waking bargains, and their dignified self-respect, the reader of Miss Fitzgibbon's book will find many interesting particulars.

The account of the navvy's Sunday, in the absence both of drinking and gaming, is also amusing. It is curious to read how ineradicable personal vanity seems to be, how, even under the stress of their life of toil, some of the navvies may be seen "standing before a small looking-glass hung against a tree, performing their toilets with immense satisfaction." There is something supremely ridiculous in this careful attention to personal appearance under such circumstances—in this strug- gling relic of the foppish instinct, which seems to be no more motived by any thought of making an impression upon others than the bird is influenced by any such motives when it preens its feathers. Only the other day the writer was much amused at the spectacle of a poor tatterdemalion of particularly hideous appearance, peering and grinning at himself for five minutes together in a mirror facing the street from an uphol- sterer's shop. It was quite refreshing to see his interested and admiring self-contemplation, carried on in utter disregard of the jeers of two small boys. It would be a curious specu- lation how far the spread of the looking-glass, which we take to be comparatively modern, is answerable for that tendency to self-inspection, inward as well as outward, for which our generation is so remarkable. With Miss Fitzgibbon's experi- ences upon her return journey we shall leave the reader to make acquaintance for himself. We will only say here that, if not quite so amusing, this part of the book contains more of incident and of adventure than the earlier chapters, and that it gives us a high opinion of the energy and powers of endurance possessed by the ladies of the party.

There are B01110 passages descriptive of natural scenery seat.

tered through the volume, and strange to say, we have found Sister Dora was called to a special work ; we may even go so far them too, few rather than too numerous. Some of these pas- as to be glad, with Miss Riedale, that " God did not make this sages, notably that in which au evening scene in Winnipeg is noble Christian worker ' a happy wife ;' °' still, the feet remains described, merit high praise. . It is, we think, these passages, that she might have made a good wife, and it in no way inter- and the humorous touches of character which we have already feres with the beauty of her character, or the reality of her dwelt upon, that give Miss Fitzgibbon's book its chief attrac- special work. Miss Risdale apparently forgets that Sister Dora tions, and make us feel, on laying it down, that the hour or two spent in its perusal. have been passed in thoroughly agreeable