hours. I was the only officer present at this spot, all the others being near the barracks, engaged in their preservation. The corporation of the city begged me to blow up any house whose destruction I thought would retard the fire; and they brought up a quantity of gunpowder, with some wet blankets (by my desire), in a canoe. I blew up two houses evidently doomed for destruction; but, there being no water at hand, and the wooden buildings some distance in advance of the burning houses being in flames, the attempt was futile.

'I found, when I approached my house at two o'clock in the morning, that it was still in existence, though in great danger. I obtained a fevered sleep of an hour and a half, and then rose and went to the wharf. I found my servants there, looking very pale and fagged, and, all around, furniture and baggage of every description, and groups of poor men and women.

'More than 10,000 persons have been burnt out, and are now living in the fields, or under tents and sheds supplied to them by Government.

"What makes this terrible calamity the more appalling is, that there can hardly be any doubt that it was mainly owing to incendiaries. Even the night after the fire, people were arrested in the act of setting fire to buildings.

‹ The head-quarter Engineer Office, the District Office, and the General Office, have been burnt. Almost all our plans (some most valuable), papers, and records were destroyed. The flames spread with such rapidity, that

it was scarcely possible to save anything from these buildings.

'I shall never forget this fire, or the fatigue, anxiety, and exertion I underwent. I may well thank God for the safety of my own life and of most of my property.'

CHAPTER III.

TRAVELLING IN THE UNITED STATES.

'Montreal: Feb. 10, 1853.

I

LEFT Montreal to commence what Madame de Staël calls "one of the saddest pleasures in life to-day. My journey had a gloomy commencement, as I was late for the train, and obliged to wait four hours and a half in an unfurnished and melancholy waitingroom till another started. I employed the time in reading a couple of articles in the "Westminster Review," and was commencing another on the eternal subject of " American Slavery," and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," when the "bus " from Montreal brought over its party of passengers going by the train, which I was certainly not this time too late for. Among the travellers I recognised Lect and Dewar in company with some American ladies, whom they were escorting to the terminus. Lect introduced me to his fair friends.

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The party (with whom I travelled for the greater part of this day and the next) consisted of an old lady and gentleman and three girls. They were natives of Boston, and thither bound. The old lady I found afterwards in conversation to be a well-read, observant,

acute, and energetic woman,-a type of a large class in the States. She talked to me of her own country, and of Canada; of the energy and rapid development of the one, and of the torpor and apparently self-satisfied stagnation of the other; but was much pleased with both Montreal and Quebec: she was acquainted with some of the leading men in the States, and had heard and admired some of its most eloquent orators. She spoke of Mr. Ingersoll, the new American minister, and therein betrayed that feeling of reverence for wealth which is so distinctive a trait in the Yankee character. She thought Mr. Ingersoll would not be able to maintain his position with such éclat as his predecessor Mr. Lawrence, as he was not nearly so rich a man. I endeavoured to convince her to the contrary, by assuring her that, though money had its due influence in England, yet wealth and position were by no means synonymous terms.

'We reached Rouse's Point, at a quarter-past six; at half-past seven were entertained with a meagre and unsatisfactory supper, and retired to rest (at least I did) very soon after, having visions before me of a journey of eighteen hours on the morrow.

6

Friday, Feb. 11th. Rose at a little after 5 A.M., after passing a restless night, principally owing to a propensity for walking up and down the passage outside my room, developed by an individual in thick boots. Ate some tough beefsteak and swallowed a cup of weak tea, and then resumed my journey. My new friends travelled with me as far as Windsor; and by

AGREEABLE TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.

33

the time we arrived there, I found myself talking to the young ladies with the freedom of a friend, instead of the reserve of one day's acquaintance. They chatted away very familiarly and cheerfully, and shook hands quite affectionately when we parted, hoping I would come and see them if I ever came to Boston. They were intelligent girls, and had apparently read most of the current publications of the day. I was amused at the avidity with which one of them devoured a newspaper,not so generally appreciated by the fair sex at home,— and at the eager manner with which they studied, in the pages of a magazine, a picture of a new, and in my opinion hideous, fashion in dress. They did not possess that refinement which is so characteristic of an English lady, and their manners would certainly not have been considered perfection at home; but, spite of this, they were "cute," kind-hearted, and sociable, and, at all events, pleasant travelling companions for a solitary bachelor, who is delighted at the opportunity of occasionally escaping the melancholy and solitary companionship of his own thoughts.

'The Vermont Central Railroad, by which I travelled from Montreal to New York, traverses here and there some pretty bits of scenery, and skirts for some distance the waters of the Connecticut River. The green mountains are the most striking natural objects on the route.

The traveller is generally doomed to monotony in journeying through the States. Flat tracks of partially cleared wild land form the staple of the scenery. The thriving appearance of all the towns and villages,

D