CANADA.* LNT a large volume, but not at all too

large, profusely illustrated by maps, and by pictures of some of the finest points between Lake Superior and Vancouver's Island, Mr. Grant has given us the diary of the journey of the Engineer-in-Chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway, performed in three and a half months, during the summer and autumn of last year. It bears the stamp of a sober, serious, earnest, cultivated man, anxious to report correctly all that he saw ; and it certainly succeeds in impressing its readers with a conviction of its simple truthfulness. It is, moreover, not- withstanding its plain matter-of-factness and the absence of almost everything in the shape of adventure, exceedingly interesting, owing, we fancy, to the feeling of entire reliableness with which we read the series of descriptions of ever changing scenery, circumstances, and inhabitants, over more than five thousand miles of country belonging to the British Crown, and likely to become the home of so many of our own people. The absence of all exaggeration and sensationalism, and attempt to work up trifles into exciting adventure, gives the book a reality which will make it a favourite with boys who are staying at home, as well as with men who want to learn about every part of the British dominions, and that still more interested reader, the intending emigrant. Even the mere lover of the grand and picturesque will be amply rewarded by a perusal of the latter half of the book, which brings its readers into the magnificent valleys, gorges, and caiions of the Rocky Mountains, and down into the lovely archipelago in the Strait of Georgia, and thence up the numerous fjords that penetrate the mountains of the mainland, and almost rival those of Norway.

But it is on that part of the journey which more especially affects British emigrants that we wish to dwell ; on the ques- tions of soil, climate, water, markets, and lastly,ficenery, which are all-important. It seems, however, useless to waste time about the beauty of the scenery and the richness of the soil. The former is only interesting to the cultivated classes, and is certainly not a desideratum with our agricultural labourers' families starving on ten shillings a week ; and of the latter, scarcely anyone can be in doubt who has read or listened to anything on the subject. But if there be any question of these, it will be well first to lay it to rest by a few extracts from the book now before us. We English know something of river, lake, and mountain scenery, and the descrip- tions are so numerous and so alluring that it is vain to choose ; nor would the most entrancing pictures of the valleys of New Brunswick or of the canons and gorges of the Rocky Mountains have much effect on the man proposing to take up his MO acres in Manitoba. Let us see, then, what Mr. Grant says of the Prairie:—

"Awakened at 8 a.m

* Ocean la Ocean. By the Rev. George M. Grant, Secretary to Flemings Expedi- tion through Canada In 1872. London : Sampson Low and Co. We looked out and beheld a sea of green, sprinkled with yellow, red, lilac, and white. None of us had ever seen a prairie before, and behold, the half had not been told us! As you cannot know what the ocean is without seeing it, neither can you in imagination picture the prairie Tall, bright-yellow, Fren0 marigolds, scattered in clumps over the vast expanse, gave a golden hue to the scene ; and red, pink and white roses, tansy, astn-s, blue-bells, golden rods, and an immense variety of composite, thickly bedded among the green grass, made up a

bright and beautiful carpet Our first evening on the prairie was like many another which followed it. The sky was a clear, soft, unfiecked blue, save all around the horizon, where pure white clouds of many shapes and masses bordered it, like a great Shield of which only the rim is embossed. The air was singularly exhilarating,

yet sweet and warm, as in more southern latitudes Far away stretched the level prairie, dotted with islets of aspens, and the sun in his going down dipped beneath it, as he does beneath the sea."

And when the prairie is less level it is still more beautiful :— " Our second stage for the day was sixteen miles over an excellent road, and through a country that evoked spontaneous bursts of admira- tion from everyone. The prairie was more than rolling, it was undulating ; broken into natural fields by the rounded hillocks and

ridges, crowned with clumps of aspens Our next two stages carried us over twenty-five miles of a lovely country, known as the Little Touchwood Hills. Aspens were grouped on gentle slopes, or so

thrown in at the right points of valley and plain, as to convey the idea of distance and every other effect that a landscape gardener could desire. Lakelets and pools, fringed with willows, glistened out at almost every turn of the road Only the manor houses and some gently flow- ing streams were wanting to make out a resemblance to the most beautiful parts of England Every mile across a country of unequalled beauty and fertility ; of swelling uplands enclosing in their hollows la.kelets, the homes of snipe. plover, and duck, fringed with tall reeds, and surrounded with a belt of soft woods ; long reaches of rich lowlands, with hill-sides spreading gently away from them, on which we were always imagining the houses of the owners ; avenues of whispering trees through which we rode on, without ever coming to lodge or gate."

And this is written of the least picturesque and striking section of our traveller's long journey from Ocean to Ocean. And now as to soil. From New Brunswick to the Rocky Mountains, the account is one of almost continuous rich, fertile soil, yield- ing abundant, even immense, crops, without the aid of either manure or careful cultivation. Mr. Grant corroborates what so many other writers have told us of the crops in Manitoba exceeding even those in the rich State of Minnesota. Of the valley of the Assiniboine he says :—" A walk in the garden at Silver Heights was sufficient to prove to us the wonderful richness of the soil of the Assiniboine Valley. The wealth of vegetation and the size of the root crops astonished us, especially when informed that no manure had been used and very little care taken. The soil all along the Assiniboine is either a dark or a light- coloured loam—the vegetable or sandy loam that our gardeners are so anxious to fill their pots with—a soil capable of raising any- thing." Further on he says, "The soil of Minnesota is not equal in quality to the soil of Manitoba. Calcareous soils are usually fertile, and Manitoba has not only abundant limestone everywhere, but every other element required to make soil unusually productive." And two hundred and fifty miles further west we are again told of the exceeding richness of the loam. It is "the very country for stock-raising or dairy farms. The road was bad, and no wonder, according to the axiom that good soil makes bad roads. The ruts were deep with black loam, and rough with willow-roots. Even when the wheels sank to the axles they never brought up any clay ; moist, dripping, black muck, that would gladden the eyes of a farmer, was all that they found."

Mr. Grant does not pretend to deny the coldness of the Canadian winter, but he assures us that it has been much exaggerated. The isothermal lines show the course of the proposed Canadian Pacific Railway—towards which we may assume that the tide of coming emigration will flow—to boast as favourable a climate as the British Islands, and in some respects Mr. Grant clearly points out that it has the advantage. He speaks frequently of the evidence of settlers as to the dryness, clearness, and stillness of the air in winter, which takes the sting from the frost, as we English can testify. Between Lakes Superior and Winnipeg, we real, "great as is the summer rainfall, it is quite different in winter ; then the days are clear and cloudless, and so sunny and pleasant that he [Mr. Grant's informant] was accustomed to go about in his summer clothing, except in the mornings and evenings. Three feet of snow fell in the woods after Christmas, and continued dry and powdery until April, when it commenced to melt and soon after the middle of May it was all gone, and vegeta-

tion began to show itself at once." West of Winnipeg, in latitude 500, we find that "the answer of every man and

woman we spoke to was that the winter was pleasanter than in Ontario, Quebec, or the maritime provinces. There is na severe weather till the beginning of December. The average depth of snow from that time is two feet, and there is no thaw till March. The severity of the intervening months is lessened by the bright sun, the cloudless skies, the stillness and dryness of the air. On account of the steady cold, the snow is dry as meal, and the farmers' wives said that 'it was such an advantage that- the children could run about all winter, without getting their- feet wet.'" Of the summer weather Mr. Grant can speak from experience, and he does so continually, and it is almost invariably in such terms as these, in which he writes on 5th August, "The nights were so cool that the blanket was welcome, and in the eveniugs and mornings we could enjoy the hot tea. The air throughout the day was delicious, fresh, flower-scented, healthful, and generally breezy, so that neither horse nor rider was warm after a fifteen or twenty-mile ride. We ceased to wonder that we had not heard of a case of sickness in one of the settlers' families. Each day was like a new picnic." In mach higher latitudes, but sheltered by the Rocky Mountains, he assures as that the winter is softer and more genial than that of Winnipeg.

Of the questions of Water and Markets, Mr. Grant confesses that he cannot speak so satisfactorily. By the sides of the great

rivers or their numerous tributaries, there is no lack of good water, but the innumerable lakes and lakelets of the prairies are, he found, often salt and brackish. Frequently, however, the fresh and brackish lakes were found in close juxtaposition, the fresh-water one being uniformly on the higher level. He assures us, how- ever, on scientific evidence, and for reasons which he explains, that there is no reason to despair of fresh water being found, when sunk for, in the immediate vicinity of salt lakes. Of Markets, the principal ones far West are the old Hud- son's Bay Company's stations. But Winnipeg is a fast-rising and populous place, already an excellent market, and when a railway shall be added to the very limited and inferior high- ways now existing, and whose means of locomotion depend at present on horses and canoes, there will no longer exist the slightest cause for anxiety as to the profitable disposal of the settlers' crops. Indians, mosquitoes, and other of the leas serious difficulties are discussed, and do not appear to present any formidable obstacles.

But there is still one thing seriously wanted, of which Mr. Grant knows nothing, but which must be supplied, if the emigrant most likely to benefit Canada and to be benefited by it—our agricultural labourer—is ever to obtain the dollar and a quarter a day with board and lodging, given by Canadian farmers, without, we trust, having in return to toil for the terribly long hours now exacted. That thing is a clear explanation to the poor, not merely made after their application for aid, but, to induce them to make such application, of how the transference of themselves and their families, from the very first step to the last, is to be managed. How are they to live while the father is making the necessary inquiries, and mastering the rudiments of the subject? Idleness for half a day means a serious aggravation of privations already hard to endure. Who is to pay their little debts? Who will fit them out? frank them to Liverpool? direct them where to go there? keep them there till the vessel sails ? re- ceive, house, and feed them, and provide cash for sundries, on their arrival at Quebec or other Canadian port? and who will repeat all these good offices at their final destination, till a house is built, and wages begin to flow in? It is easy to tell a man that he will have 160 acres on application, and have his passage paid ; this only dis- poses of his chief difficulty, even when he has discovered where to make his application, and had it attended to. The outlying diffi- culties are the serious ones. How are we to live while the matter is progressing ? Who will free us from our present liabilities, and where is the cash for sundries to come from ? The present writer has himself proposed the matter to many able-bodied struggling labourers and artisans, and has found them all in a maze, and too bewildered to take to the idea seriously ; they don't know where to begin, and meantime, that very day's bread has to be earned ; so they fall back on their 10s. a week, and the difficulties they know and understand. We trust the Leamington Union has thought of these things, and will publicly teach the poor how they can.overcome each small obstacle. For married men and emigrants above the labouring class the advantages of Canada are not quite self-evident ; they do not get their board and lodging given them, and in estimating wages they have to take into account the coat of

these. Rent, however, there is none, for a shanty built by the oc- cupier for himself on his own allotment. Fuel—so large an item to the comfortable Englishman, and so seriously missed by the poor — is likewise without cost and in great abundance. Food would be chiefly home produce, and when bought is not dearer than in England, and, as far as meat is concerned, is indeed much cheaper.

Clothes, too, are much the same price in Canadian towns as at home ; education is free, and rates and taxes in the townships are particularly low. It is, indeed, passing strange that with all these facts before them, poor English gentlemen, as well as poor farmers, do not betake themselves to a land where there is so much less competition and so much more elbow-room. What better can a

poor gentleman—and their name is legion—do with a large family and a small income than go to Canada. He gets his 160 acres at

once, and has not even to say "thank you" for them ; each son as he comes to man's estate will have 100 more, if he wish to settle there; the soil is so rich that ordinary intelligence and a very little hired labour will yield crops heavier than fall to the lot of regularly educated farmers in England, and experience will quickly perfect its pupil.- His household expenses will be immensely less, as be will feed his family with home-grown produce. He will realise the dream of most men to possess land and a home where his children and grandchildren can assemble,

and which may be handed down from father to son for generations. He will dill be a British subject, with greater chance of taking a leading part in the government and legislation of

his country than he will ever have here. He will enjoy grand and beautiful scenery, a fine climate, and his favourite out- door sports to his heart's content. And his neighbours, instead of being, like the English country gentleman's, principally obtuse and ignorant peasants, will be, many of them, men of cultivation like himself, with families amongst whom he and his will find themselves in sympathy. Why, with such an opening before him, should the poor English gentleman continue to waken morning after morning, with a deep sigh, as he thinks of his growing sous and their large cost, of his patient tradesmen and their large bills, and of his impatient banker and his small balance, probably on the wrong side of the account? Why should he grow prematurely care-worn and old, labouring at a sedentary and probably irksome occupation, when he has perhaps an income with which he would be rich in Canada, especially when supplemented by the producedf a farm which cost him nothing ?