I believe that very few English people of the working class, or rather that section of the working class who can afford themselves an annual holiday, of, say, three weeks, conceive it possible to go far beyond the confines of these islands, in the time at their disposal. I am certain that still fewer have in their minds the possibility of a short visit to Canada, so that one does not often hear anything, either of what a journey across the Atlantic is like, or of first impressions of Canada and Canadians. Of course there are many elaborate books of travel through Canada, to the Rockies, British Columbia, and other distant parts of the Dominion; these are all of very great interest, but they exist only for the wealthy traveller and globe trotter, and are useless to anyone whose time and finances are, like my own, very limited.

Although yearly increasing numbers of our surplus population are making new homes and interests in the daughter country, and there are very few of our British families but have some member or friend, either going, or already settled there, yet it struck me as remarkable how little Canada was known to me, or to the average Englishman; so, being about to start on a short holiday, I thought I would like to experience for myself the hundred and one trivial details connected with an ocean journey, and make an acquaintance, however slight, with some of the nearer towns and famous cities of Canada, and thereby gain some knowledge of Canadian ideas and opinions, whilst taking a well earned rest.

I was fortunate enough to secure, by telephone, just the one berth left in the second class on R.H.S. "Royal Edward,” 12,000 tons, 18,000 horse power, of the Royal line, only three days before the date of her departure from Bristol The "Royal" is a comparatively new line, in connexion with the Canadian Northern Railway, whose branches arc extending in all directions up and across the country; out across "the Great Lone Land” to Hudson Bay, carrying settlers and civilization to those remote territories, where, until quite recently, the Indian hunter and the forts of the Hudson Bay Company reigned supreme.