from Canada relative to the future supply
of the Expedition. This delay was at the time most irksome, as I too
frequently pictured the troops pushing on towards Fort Garry while I was
detained inactive in Minnesota; but one morning the American papers came
out with news that the expeditionary forces had met with much delay in
their first move from Thunder Bay; the road over which it was necessary
for them to transport their boats, munitions, and supplies for a distance
of forty-four miles from Superior to Lake Shebandowan was utterly
impracticable, portions of it, indeed, had still to be made, bridges to
be built, swamps to be corduroyed, and thus at the very outset of the
Expedition a long delay became necessary. Of course, the American press
held high jubilee over this check, which was represented as only the
beginning of the end of a series of disasters. The British Expedition was
never destined to reach Red River--swamps would entrap it, rapids would
engulf it; and if, in spite of these obstacles, some few men did succeed
in piercing the rugged wilderness, the trusty rifle of the Metis would
soon annihilate the presumptive intruders. Such was the news and such
were the comments I had to read day after day, as I anxiously scanned the
columns of the newspapers for intelligence. Nor were these comments on
the Expedition confined to prophecy of its failure from the swamps and
rapids of the route: Fenian aid was largely spoken of by one portion of
the press. Arms and ammunition, and hands to use them, were being pushed
towards St. Cloud and the Red River to aid the free sons of the
North-west to follow out their manifest destiny, which, of course, was
annexation to the United States. But although these items made reading a
matter of no pleasant description, there were other things to be done in
the good city of St. Paul not without their special interest. The Falls
of the Mississippi at St. Anthony, and the lovely little Fall of
Minnehaha, lay only some seven miles distant. Minnehaha is a perfect
little beauty; its bright sparkling waters, forming innumerable fleecy
threads! of silk-like wavelets, seem to laugh over the rocky edge; so
light and so lace-like is the curtain, that the sunlight streaming
through looks like a lovely bride through some rich bridal veil. The
Falls of St. Anthony are neither grand nor beautiful, and are utterly
disfigured by the various sawmills that surround them.

The hotel in which I lodged at