to fifty bushels of wheat an acre, and from fifty to sixty of oats. Manures are unknown and unwanted by these western farmers. The land has only to be "scratched with a plough," and the field will often yield a rich harvest of 500 acres of wheat. The hum of the harvest is heard in all the land, and we see for miles the golden grain waiting to be gathered, and the "reapers and binders" hard at work. This machine is an ingenious American invention, which cuts and binds at the same time. There is a string inside which is given a twist, a knife comes down and cuts the strings and throws out the sheaf. It is pretty to watch the rhythmical precision with which sheaf after sheaf, thus cut and tied, is thrown out on the track of the machine. The sheaves are then piled into generous stacks and left for a fortnight to dry. Labour is at a premium throughout Canada, and machinery, chiefly of American manufacture, is more largely used than in England. Sometimes two chums will farm 200 acres alone. Nearly all this grain we see is the far-famed Manitoba No. 1 hard. It is the finest wheat in the world.
We are now approaching Brandon, which is a great wheat centre. This town has the largest grain market in Manitoba, as is shown by five elevators. "It is the distributing centre for an extensive and well settled country." We should have stayed here, but were deterred by accounts of the hotel accommodation. Then came the pleasure of an orange sunset, gilding the grain into more golden glory. We passed the celebrated Bell Farm at night where the furrows are usually four miles long, and the work is done by military organization, "ploughing by brigades, and reaping by divisions."
At five o'clock we are left cold and shivering in the just broken dawn on the prairie side at Regina. We look wistfully after the disappearing train, with the warm berths inside the car. Deceived by the high-sounding designation of Capital of the North-West Provinces, we had broken our journey at Regina. There is a frontage to the line of some wooden houses and stores, which extends but a little way back, for the population of Regina is only as yet 2000. The prairie extends to the sky line on every side. It is a dreary prospect, and we are mutually depressed.
There being nothing else to do, I retire to bed for some hours—the Sheffield-born landlady giving us a true Sheffield welcome.
At one o'clock matters seem brighter, for Colonel Herchmer, commanding the Mounted Police of the North-West Territory, has kindly sent a team for us to drive two miles out across the prairie to the barracks. From the distance, the dark red buildings look quite a town, surmounted by the tower of the riding school. This force is organized on military lines, and consists of 1000 men, who maintain order over the Indian Reservations, and an area of 800 miles. Their uniform of scarlet patrol-jacket and black forage cap, with long riding-boots is extremely smart. You meet them in all parts of the North-West Provinces.
After lunching with Mrs. Herchmer, we inspected the officers' and men's mess rooms, the canteen, store room, kitchens and forge, the reading-room, bowling alley and theatre, and the guard room, where we were shown the cell in which Louis Riel was kept after his capture. The force is under strict military discipline. They have a football and cricket team, and a musical ride equal to that of the Life Guards.
The horses are all "bronchos," or prairie horses, bred chiefly from Indian ponies. They cost 100 dols. to 120 dols. each, and are short and wiry. They need to be strong, for the men must be five feet eight inches in height, and measure thirty-five inches round the chest, while the Californian saddles they use are very heavy. These saddles are after the model of the Spanish South American ones, with a high pommel in front and a triangular wooden stirrup. The horses are guaranteed to go forty miles a day. There are many gentlemen in the ranks of the force, some of whom have failed in ranching and other walks of life. The wild roving life on the out-stations may be pleasant, but there is no promotion from the ranks.
A drive of two miles further out on to the prairie brought us to one of the Dominion Schools, kept for the children of the Indian Reservations. Mr. Hayter Reed, the Government Inspector, who showed us over the school, told us that they do not force the parents to give up the children, but persuade them. It is uphill work at first, civilizing and teaching English to the little brown, bright-eyed children, with lank black hair, whom we saw in the schoolrooms. The bath and the wearing of boots is a severe trial to these gipsy children at first.
The Government acknowledges in the building of these schools its responsibility towards the natives. They made treaties with the Indians, giving them rations, and setting apart certain lands or Reservations for them, such as the Black Foot and the Sarcee. The Americans did the same with their Indians, but did not keep their treaties as we have done. However, like all other "indigenes," they are dying out with the advance of the white man's civilization. We drove home past Government House, and in the evening M. Royat, the Lieut.-Governor, presided over an enthusiastic meeting of the United Empire Trade League.
Since very early morning, and all through this interminably long hot day, we have been crossing the great desert prairie. Hour after hour has dragged wearily on, and still we look out from the car on to the symmetrical lines of the rolling plains.
For over 400 miles, from Regina to Medicine Hat, this vast steppe extends. There is no green thing on it—not a tree, or bush, or shrub—but it is covered with coarse grass, burnt to a sere yellow. The prairie is trackless as a desert; lonely as the ocean; vast and colourless as a summer sky. And yet the prairie pleases, its loneliness fascinates, its very monotony charms, the deep stillness soothes, the tints are so pale and quiet. There is the faded yellow of the grass, and the faint blue of the sky meeting on the horizon in that never-ending undulating line, unbroken and uninterrupted. The atmosphere is so clear that the blades of grass stand out alone, and a distant sage bush is intensely blue. Occasionally the haze makes the mirage of an ocean on the sky line. The only variety to this unvarying scene are the great saline lakes we frequently pass. A blue haze hangs over them, caused by the active evaporation, and now and again we see a shining patch of pure white crystal, which is the crust of salt left from an exhausted lake. At other times these dry basins are carpeted with a rich red and purple weed, that forms an oasis in the wilderness of burnt-out hues.
We see many buffalo trails, for though these animals have been extinct for some years, their prancings beat the trail so hard, that they are still in existence. As many as 160,000 were killed yearly, and with them disappeared the chief sustenance of the Indians. The prairie is strewn with their bleached skulls and carcasses. By the side of the stations there are stacks of their gigantic bones, artistically built up with the skulls facing outwards. Gophers start up and skurry away at the noise of the train. They correspond to the prairie dog of America, but are smaller and about the size of a rabbit.
We are impressed with the comparative fertility of the Canadian prairie, when contrasted with the similar belt of saline desert in America, for barren as this looks, parts of it are good for cattle ranching. We do, later in the day, occasionally pass a few settlers' dwellings, and presently the first of the Canadian Agricultural Company's farms. There are ten of these farms, consisting of 10,000 acres each, and situated at intervals of thirty miles between this and Calgary. We see on them frequent "fire breaks," or a ploughed acre left bare to prevent a fire from spreading in the crops. There are men, too, stationed along the line firing the grass, so that a spark dropped from the engine should not, by blazing this grass, spread to the ripening corn.
We inquire what is the use of the mounds by the tracks, and are told these are snow brakes. In this flat country the smallest rise is sufficient to make a drift, against which the snow piles to a great height.
We pass Moosejaw. The name is an abridgment of the Indian one, which literally means, "The-creek-where-the-white-man-mended-the-cart with-a-moose-jaw-bone." At Maple Creek there are large stock yards, where the cattle are brought down from far distant ranches, and even from over the American border at Montana, and put on the train to Montreal and exported to England.
The car had been up to 95°, but the intense heat was beginning to subside. With the refreshing coolness and the sun declining, we are also gladdened by the sight of a gradually rising slope on the dead level of the plain. It is the beginning of the Cypress range. Then we see a bush, some trees, some prairie flowers, and soon we are dropping down into the comparatively fruitful valley of the South Saskatchawan, and, crossing its broad river, we reach Medicine Hat.
It is delightful after the stifling atmosphere of the cars