the fine Chaudiere Falls, where the entire River Ottawa drops fifty
feet over a rocky ledge. The boiling whirl of angry waters has well
earned its name of cauldron, or "Chaudiere," but so much of the water
has now been drawn off to supply electricity and power to the city,
that the volume of the falls has become sensibly diminished. I know of
no place in Europe where the irresistible might of falling waters is
more fully brought home to one than at Trollhattan in Sweden. Here the
Gotha River whirls itself down 120 feet in seven cataracts. They are
rapids rather than falls, but it is the immense volume of water which
makes them so impressive. Every year Trolhattan grows more and more
disfigured by saw-mills, carbide of calcium works, and other industrial
buildings sprouting up like unsightly mushrooms along the river-banks.
The last time that I was there it was almost impossible to see the
falls in their entirety from any point, owing to this congestion of
squalid factories.

Rideau Hall, the Government House at Ottawa, stands about two miles out
of the town, and is a long, low, unpretentious building, exceedingly
comfortable as a dwelling-house, if somewhat inadequate as an official
residence for the Governor-General of Canada. Lord Dufferin added a
large and very handsome ball-room, fitted with a stage at one end of
it, and a full-sized tennis-court. This tennis-court, by an ingenious
arrangement, can be converted in a few hours into a splendid
supper-room. A red and white tent is lowered bodily from the roof; a
carpet is spread over the floor; great white-and-gold electric
standards bearing the arms of the different Provinces are placed in
position, and the thing is done. The intense dryness of the Canadian
winter climate, especially in houses where furnace-heat intensifies the
dryness, produces some unexpected results. My brother-in-law had
brought out a number of old pieces of French inlaid furniture. The
excessive dryness forced out some of the inlaid marqueterie of these
pieces, and upon their return to Europe they had to undergo a long and
expensive course of treatment. Some fine Romneys and Gainesboroughs
also required the picture-restorer's attentions before they could
return to their Wiltshire home after a five years' sojourn in the dry
air of Canada. The ivory handles of razors shrink in the dry
atmosphere; as the steel frame cannot shrink correspondingly the ivory
splits in two. The thing most surprising to