I must get on with my journal or shall fall altogether astern—you have no idea how hard it is even to find time to write a few lines home; however if I can only make up the time to-day I hope to keep down the arrears more regularly hereafter. We had a long day of sightseeing in and about Quebec. First we drove down to the Montmorency Falls, 220 feet high and very beautiful, then back to the Citadel, which rises some 600 or 700 feet right above the river—a regular little Gibraltar; then we went off to the Heights of Abraham, at the back of the Citadel, where Wolfe fought his battle and was killed after scaling the cliffs in the early morning. Then we drove down into the town, and had lunch at a restaurant, and walked about to see the place. Well worth seeing it is; a quaint, old, thoroughly French town of the last century dropped down into the middle of the new world. In the evening we went on board the great river steamer, and came away all night up the St. Lawrence to Montreal. There were 1000 passengers on board, every one of whom had an excellent berth—mine was broader and lighter than that on the Peruvian. We were not the least crowded in the splendid saloon (some 150 feet long), and the open galleries running all round the ship in two tiers. I preferred the latter, though there was music, Yankee and Canadian, in the saloon, and spent my evening till bedtime out in the stern gallery looking at the most superb moonlight on the smooth water you can conceive. We had a small English party there, and there were half a dozen constantly changing groups round us. The girls have evidently much more freedom than at home, at least more than they had in our day—two or three would come out with as many young men, and sit round in a ring. The men lighted cigars, and then they would all set to work singing glees, songs, or what not, and chaffing and laughing away for half an hour perhaps, after which they would disappear into the saloon. There was a regular bar on board at which all manner of cool drinks were sold. We tried several, which I thought, I must say, very nasty, especially brandy-smash. After a most comfortable night I awoke between five and six as we were nearing Montreal. The city is very fine, the river still two miles broad, and ocean steamer drawing twenty feet and more of water able to lie right up against the quay. S———, a friend of Sir J. Rose’s, a great manufacturer here, whom I had taken to the “Cosmopolitan,” was in waiting on the landing-place, and took us at once up to his charming house on the hill (the mountain they call it) at the back of the city. He is a man of forty-three or forty-four; his wife, a very pleasant woman a little younger, and adopted daughter, Alice (a very sweet girl of nineteen, just home from an English school), form the whole family. I can’t tell you how kind they are and how perfectly at home they have made us. After breakfast we went down to see the city, got photographed with the rest of the above-named Peruvians, had a delicious lunch of fried oysters at a luncheon shop kept by a Yankee, washed it down with a drink called John Collins, a pleasant, cold, weak, scented kind of gin and water. Sir Geo. Carter and Sir Fras. Hinks, two of the present Government, both of whom I had met in England, came to dinner, also Holton the leading senator of the Opposition, and the two young Roses, one bringing his pretty young wife, and we had a long and very interesting political talk afterwards. Nothing could have suited me better, as there are many points of Canadian politics I am very anxious to get views on. We didn’t get to bed till 12.30, so I had no time to write. On Wednesday we saw more of the city which I shan’t attempt to describe till I can sit by you with photographs and explain, lunched at the Club, of which we have been made honorary members, with a large party of merchants and other big folk, and then at three were picked up by Mrs. S.—-, who drove us up the river to a place called Lachine, past the rapids (see Canadian boat-song), “The rapids are near and the daylight’s past.” Lachine gets its queer name from the first French Missionaries who started up the St. Lawrence to get to China, and for some unaccountable reason thought they had reached the flowery land when they got to this place, so settled down and called it China. The air was still charming, but the sky was beginning to get less bright, and Mrs. S—— and A———agreed that there must be a forest burning somewhere. And so it proved, for in a few hours the whole sky was covered with a smoke-cloud, light but not depressing, like our fogs, but still so dense that we could scarcely see across the river. We got back in time for dinner, to which came Colonel Buller, now commanding the Rifles here; Hugh Allan, the head of the great firm of ship-owners to whom the Peruvian and all the rest of the Allan line packets belong; and several young Canadians. It was very pleasant again, and again I got a heap of information on Canadian subjects from Allan, who is a longheaded able old Scotchman, the founder of the immense prosperity of himself and all his family. He has his private steam yacht and a great place on a lake near here, wherein is a private telegraph, so that he can wire all over the world from his own hall. Prince Arthur went to stay with him when he was out here in the late autumn and spring, and the Queen wired him every day while he was there. Early next morning S———,

Miss A———, I, and R——— were off by rail to a station ten or twelve miles up the river, where we waited till the Montreal market-boat came down and picked us up to shoot the rapids. We had a very pleasant run to Quebec, and the shooting the rapids is very interesting, but neither dangerous nor even exciting. The river widens out perhaps to two and a half miles in width, and for some mile or mile and a half breaks into these rapids, which boil and rush along at a great pace, and in quite a little boat would no doubt keep the steerer and oarsmen on the stretch. The approach to Montreal under the great Victoria Bridge, two miles long, is very noble. We got back to breakfast at ten, and afterwards went up the mountain at the back of the town, but the haze from the burning forest quite spoiled the view. The carriage is announced, so I must close.