If we carry ourselves in imagination to that part of North America nearest to Europe, we find that we have reached the most easterly coast of the Island of Newfoundland, an outlying portion of the continent. Standing on Cape Bonavista and looking from this promontory over the waste of waters, we discover that between the Equator and Greenland the Atlantic Ocean is generally of much greater width in every other parallel than opposite our present position: that its breadth rapidly increases as we proceed southward, if but a few degrees of latitude, and that, in the parallels of New York or Philadelphia, the ocean is more than double the width. Towards the continent of Europe the first land the eye rests upon is that of the British Islands. Four centuries back the first recorded discoverer of Newfoundland sailed from those shores, and from the time of the Tudor monarchs this stretch of ocean has been unceasingly traversed by European ships. It has thus been the cradle of ocean navigation. Adventurous men, who planted the early settlement of America, crossed to the new world on this narrow belt. The vessels which carried them were indeed frail craft compared with the creations of modern ship-building. But, step by step, they were enlarged and developed to the magnificent clipper, which again has been supplanted by the still more magnificent ocean steamer.

In old days, even in a sailing vessel of large tonnage, a sea voyage was frequently accompanied with much misery. It was not uncommon for emigrants to be detained at sea as many weeks as now days are needed for the voyage. Ships might be retarded or driven back by adverse gales, or they might remain in mid-ocean, becalmed in water as unruffled as a mirror of glass. Steam has revolutionized these conditions. Instead of ships being turned far from their course by contrary winds, or with flapping canvas waiting for a fair breeze, we behold on the waters of the Atlantic fleets of swift steamers, carrying thousands of passengers to and fro with the regularity of the daily post between two neighbouring cities. However formidable the voyage once was, its greater drawbacks are now removed. A steam ferry has been practically established between the two continents, and transportation is effected with scarcely less regularity than between opposite banks of a navigable river. The path of the ocean steamer has in reality become, as it were, the Queen’s highway; and were anything wanting to facilitate intercourse, we possess it in the telegraph. If this belt of ocean has been the nursery of the ocean steamers, it has also given birth to ocean telegraphy. In no part of the world are so many submarine cables laid along the ocean bed as in this direction. We live in a period when instantaneous communications from continent to continent are as easily effected as from county to county. Year by year the facilities of intercourse, both by steamship and by telegraph, are increasing in a manner to bind closer than ever, by the ties of mutual benefit and common interest, the different members of the British family. On the one hand, the Canadian is enabled to visit the old land, where his traditions have been gathered, and where there is a history in which he can claim an inherited participation. On the other, it provides the youth of the Mother Country with an outlet by which he may gain a home with a kindred people, who revere the same memories, and who will cordially welcome his labour and energies to aid in strengthening and consolidating the institutions of that portion of the Empire.

From a multiplicity of causes, there are different shades of character and thought to distinguish the several members of the British family. They are called into being by geographical position, by race, by climate and other influences. Diversities exist, and why should it not be so? It is a shallow and unwise pretension which would ignore the fact. The inhabitants of neighbouring counties, even the members of one family, have not the same characteristics or identical likes and dislikes. As in the family so in the state. It is natural, and in some respects advantageous, that varieties of character and power should be traceable; on the other hand, as the family likeness may be seen in a group of individuals, however in many respects they may differ, an essential unity of national life and sentiment may be found one and the same amid characteristics the most divergent. The people of Canada and of England differ as the current coin of the realm differs. While in the currency there are dissimilarities of name, of value, of colour and of metal, all are impressed with the stamp of the one sovereign; so in the people there are diversities, but all can be recognized as British subjects.

If we turn our eyes in the direction opposite to Europe, we find Newfoundland situated as a barrier between the outer ocean and an inner sea; the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Whatever its destiny, Newfoundland is the one portion of British North America which has not allied her fortunes with the Canadian Dominion. Geographically, the island stands as a gigantic breakwater to shelter from the surges of the Atlantic the continent to the west, and to protect the entrance of the St. Lawrence. The Gulf of St. Lawrence has been compared to the Baltic, but, unlike the Baltic, having but one narrow channel of entry, it is approachable from the ocean by two wide navigable openings. These passages—the Straits of Belle Isle and St. Paul—lie to the north and south of Newfoundland. Around this inner Baltic-like sea we behold the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, to which may be added the eastern portion of Quebec. These Provinces occupy an extensive coast line, indented with bays and capacious harbours, presenting all the facilities for shipping, commerce and fisheries. They are bound together, and to the other Provinces of the Dominion, by one trade, one tariff and by one common nationality; on the other hand, they have each distinct local institutions for their own domestic government.

Continuing our glance westward, a thousand miles from Bonavista, beyond the ancient fortress of Quebec, we behold Montreal, the commercial metropolis of the Dominion. Here are seen ocean steamers of the largest class discharging cargoes loaded twelve days back in Liverpool, Glasgow and other parts of Europe. Advancing our view another thousand miles, over cultivated fields and flourishing cities and lakes of unrivalled magnitude, our vision carries us through deep forests beyond the Province of Ontario to the confines of Manitoba, in the middle of the continent. Still another thousand miles to the west, across prairies abounding with a fabulous fertility of soil, we reach the foot-hills of a snow-capped mountain range, concealing the country which lies beyond it. To penetrate this barrier we must advance by the known passes, and for hundreds of miles follow deep defiles, traversing further mountain ranges, until we reach the wide grassy plateau interspersed with picturesque lakes in the heart of British Columbia. We may still pierce another serrated wall of mountains by a deep and rugged valley, and, by following a tortuous and foaming river to its mouth, we meet the flow of tide of another ocean far greater in extent than that which lies behind us.

Carrying our vision beyond the shore of the western mainland, across a strait similar to that separating England from Europe, we see the Island of Vancouver, washed by currents warmed in the seas of Asia. Vancouver Island is not quite so large as England, but it enjoys the same climatic conditions, and possesses in profusion many of the same mineral treasures.

British Columbia is the youngest colony of the Empire, and until recently was practically the most distant from the Imperial centre. Its chief city bears the name of Her Majesty. The sun does not rise on Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, until eight hours after it gilds the towers of Westminster. One-third of the complete circle of the globe separates the Imperial capital from the capital of the Pacific Province, but no land intervenes which is not British, and the whole distance is under the shadow of the one national flag.

In imagination we first glanced across the ocean at its narrowest limit. Turning our glance landward, we have looked across a continent at its greatest width. All we have scanned, from sea to sea, is Canada. The vast proportions of the Dominion, its varied features, its lakes and rivers, mountains and plains, its sources of wealth and magnificent scenery, are but little known to Englishmen. A country to be known must be seen. It is not enough to examine a terrestrial globe or ponder over maps and geographies in order to form an estimate of the character of half a continent. They suggest but a faint idea of territorial extent. You must traverse its different sections, and bestow time in examining its fields and forests, its natural landscape, its cities and its civilization.

There are few, indeed, who possess anything like an adequate conception of the immense extent and resources of the Dominion. It is scarcely possible even for Canadians themselves to conceive the wealth of territory and the varied magnificence of scenery and the productive capacity of the land, the destinies of which it is their privilege to control.

During the past summer (1883), circumstances induced the writer to visit England, to recross the Atlantic, and make a journey through the whole extent of Canada to the Pacific coast. The railway took him to the base of the Rocky Mountains. From thence he entered the passes, and by pack-horse and on foot he followed the route proposed to be taken by the Canadian Pacific Railway through British Columbia.

As is customary in such circumstances, the writer sent home, at convenient opportunities, a diary of his daily progress. He is aware that the notes of travel which have interest for a circle of intimate friends, have often but slender claim to public attention. These notes, however, give a sketch of the first continuous journey ever made, indeed the only one yet attempted, through the whole longitudinal extent of the Dominion by the route taken. From the interest which has been attached to his notes of travel, the writer has been prevailed upon to prepare them for publication, and, with the view of supplying such information as the future traveller may desire, a few historical notes have been included in the narrative.

Canada is certainly not within the actual geographical limits of the Mother Land, yet it is no mere rhetorical phrase to say that this half of the North American continent has become an integral part of the Empire. Seventeen years ago, when the British North American Act of 1867, creating the Dominion, passed the Imperial Parliament, British and Canadian statesmen laid the foundation of a great future for the confederated provinces. From that date Canada has steadily, step by step, done her part to realize all that was then foreshadowed of her future. She undertook to establish a highway for commerce through her forests, prairies and mountains, to connect the most distant Provinces. In a short time the national highway will be opened from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Canada will become a recognized central commercial link between England and Asia.

The writer ventures to think that the record of the journey he made, will show how closely England and Canada are brought together by the modern agencies of steam and electricity. Equally it will be obvious, how easily the British subject in Canada may revivify old associations; and how the denizen of the United Kingdom can, without discomfort, visit the whole extent of the Dominion, to enjoy the varied scenery in the many forms in which it is presented. The writer sincerely hopes that what he ventures now to submit may be instrumental in leading others to enjoy what proved to him a delightful summer tour by sea and land. It is not without diffidence that he yields to the wish expressed for the publication of his notes. He is desirous, however, of establishing that such a journey as he has accomplished presents many other points of attraction independent of the beauty of the scenery and novelty of the associations. There is much to repay enquiry in the examination of our system of government and of the institutions of the several Provinces; in ethnological developments; and in geological and kindred scientific researches. It will be found, too, that there is a past history which gives attraction to many a scene, and in all that constitutes and promotes the advance of nations there is presented much of varied interest worthy of investigation.

The writer does not hide from himself the fact that, in describing scenes and events, he may say much that is well known to many. He makes no pretension to original research. His endeavour is simply to present the notes of his journey side by side with some leading historical facts, in a way which may admit of generalization and be useful to the ordinary reader. Hence it is not impossible that the professional littÉrateur may, with a certain cynicism, consider that the following pages contain much that is not worth the record.

The two voyages across the ocean and the journey over the continent embraced a total distance travelled of about 14,000 miles, the eastern and western portions of which began and ended at Halifax.