, whilst cries of "Soop her up,
man, soop! Soop!" from the anxious "skip" fill the keen air. I like
best, though, to think of the Glamis of my young days, when the ancient
stone-built passages and halls, that have seen so many generations pass
through them and disappear, rang with perpetual youthful laughter, or
echoed beautifully finished part-singing; when nimble young feet
twinkled, and kilts whirled to the skirl of the pipes under the vaulted
roof of the nine-hundred-year-old crypt; when the whole place was
vibrant with joyous young life, and the stately, grey-bearded owner of
the historic castle, and of many broad acres in Strathmore besides,
found his greatest pleasure in seeing how happy his children and his
guests could be under his roof.

CHAPTER IX

Canada--The beginnings of the C.P.R.--Attitude of British Columbia--The
C.P.R. completed--Quebec--A swim at Niagara--Other mighty
waterfalls--Ottawa and Rideau Hall--Effects of dry climate--Personal
electricity--Every man his own dynamo--Attraction of
Ottawa--Curling--The "roaring game"--Skating--An ice-palace--A ball on
skates--Difficulties of translating the Bible into Eskimo--The building
of the snow hut--The snow hut in use--Sir John Macdonald--Some personal
traits--The Canadian Parliament buildings--Monsieur l'Orateur--A quaint
oration--The "Pages' Parliament"--An all-night sitting--The "Arctic
Cremorne"--A curious Lisbon custom--The Balkan
"souvenir-hunters"--Personal inspection of Canadian convents--Some
incidents--The unwelcome novice--The Montreal Carnival--The
Ice-castle--The Skating Carnival--A stupendous toboggan slide--The
pioneer of "ski" in Canada--The old-fashioned raquettes--A Canadian
Spring--Wonder of the Dominion.

When I was in Canada for the first time in 1884, the Canadian Pacific
Railway was not completed, and there was no through railway connection
between the Maritime Provinces, "Upper" and "Lower" Canada, and the
Pacific Coast, though, of course, in 1884 those old-fashioned terms for
the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec had been obsolete for some time.
Since the Federation of the Dominion in 1867, the opening of the
Trans-Continental railway has been the most potent factor in the
knitting together of Canada, and has developed the resources of the
Dominion to an extent which even the most enthusiastic of the original
promoters of the C.P.R. never anticipated. When British Columbia threw
in its lot with the Dominion in 1871, on