ard and regret. His
connection with Canadian history covered a period marked by events of a
nature the most critical, the results of which will colour the entire
future of the Dominion.

[Illustration]

Between the years eighteen thirty-seven and forty, when Canada was torn
by internal rebellion, the Earl of Elgin, who was then Governor-General,
drove in hot haste to the Chateau, where had sat the special council
during the suspension of the Constitution. After giving the Queen's
sanction to what was called by a certain party "The Rebel Indemnity
Bill," he rushed into one door and out of another, when this Peer of the
Realm, in all the dignity of coach and four, postillions and outriders,
was pelted with rotten eggs and other unpleasant missiles. Then, in the
dark of night, at the instance of some so-called politicians, the mob
moved on to the Parliament buildings, and, most unfortunately for
Montreal, deliberately set them on fire; which act resulted ultimately
in the removal of the seat of government to Ottawa and the decline of
the glory of the old Chateau.

[Illustration]

THE FUR KINGS.

[Illustration: Sir William Alexander]

It was to the French explorers whose names stand "conspicuous on the
pages of half-savage romance," and to their successors the Scotch
fur-kings, that we owe much of the geographical knowledge of the
northern part of the Continent. There is some uncertainty as to who was
the discoverer of the Mackenzie River, which carries its waters to the
ice-fields of Polar seas, but it bears the name of one claimant to the
distinction, Sir Alexander Mackenzie.

Of the other waterways of the region much valuable information was
obtained by Alexander Henry in his intercourse with the native tribes.
To Sir William Alexander was given the honour of being the first
Scotchman to cross the Rocky Mountains. Like his fellow countrymen, he
was distinguished by the same characteristics which made their fathers
in tartan and kilt foemen "worthy of any man's steel," and themselves
fit successors of the bearers of such honourable names as duLuth, Joliet
and de La Verandrye. A few rods from the gate of the Chateau de Ramezay
is a tall warehouse which bears on its peaked gable the date 1793. It
was in this old building that the early business years of John Jacob
Astor, the New York millionaire, were spent. It was the property of the
North-West Fur Company, which was the centre of so much that was
romanti