A Trip to Manitoba | Page 8

hold, or
tossed on end out of high baggage-vans, with such unnecessary
violence that nothing less than cases of solid iron or stronger metal
could have stood it. Trunks, "stationary" boxes warranted to stand any
ill-usage, were cracked and broken; and the poor emigrants' boxes, of
comparatively slight construction, soon became a mass of ruins, with
their contents scattered on the ground. It was the same everywhere--at
Duluth, at Glyndon, and at Fisher's Landing, where we took the Red
River boat. At Glyndon half the baggage was piled on an open truck,
and the heavy rain we passed through that night completed the ruin the
officials began. A member of the Hudson Bay Company, who had
travelled a great deal over this continent, said he found it best to carry
his baggage in a small hand-valise, or in a very large trunk so heavy
that it required two men to move it; anything between the two was
invariably smashed.

CHAPTER III.
The Mississippi--The Rapids--Aerial Railway Bridges--Breakfast at
Braynor--Lynch Law--Card-sharpers--Crowding in the Cars--Woman's
Rights!--The Prairie--"A Sea of Fire"--Crookstown--Fisher's
Landing--Strange Quarters--"The Express-man's Bed"--Herding like
Sheep--On board the Minnesota.
After leaving Duluth at four o'clock on Tuesday morning by rail, the
country through which we passed was very beautiful. Lake succeeded
lake, then came wooded hills and tiny mountain streams, crossed by
high bridges. These bridges were without parapets, and so narrow that,
looking out of the window of the car, one saw a deep gorge sixty or
seventy feet below. One railway bridge across the Mississippi--a
narrow enough stream there, at least to eyes accustomed to the broad St.
Lawrence--was more than seventy feet high, and so unsafe that trains
were allowed only to creep slowly across it. The rapids on the St. Louis
River, along the banks of which the Northern Pacific runs, are
magnificent. For some miles the high banks occasionally almost shut
out the view; then, as the train winds round a sharp curve, a mountain

torrent of foaming water bursts upon the gaze. Rocks tower above it,
with great trees bending from their heights; in the stream are huge
boulders round which the water whirls and hisses, sending its spray
high over the rugged banks, in every nook and crevice of which grow
long ferns and graceful wild-flowers. Then follows a long smooth
stretch of water with grassy wooded shores, and through the trees one
catches distant glimpses of yet wider and more beautiful falls than
those just passed.
We breakfasted at Braynor at nine o'clock, and heard with pleasure that
we had forty-five minutes wherein to satisfy exhausted nature.
Everything was delicious, and we should have done the fare even
greater justice had we known that it was the last good meal we should
obtain for thirty-six hours. When we returned to the car we were greatly
amused by an irrepressible fellow-traveller, whose over-politeness and
loquacity savoured of a morning dram or two.
He insisted on pointing out the exact spot--marked by a tall,
rough-looking post with a cross-tree on it, that stood near the
rails--where two Indians had been "lynched" for some crime by the
citizens; which exploit being regarded with pardonable pride by them,
was boasted of to travellers accordingly. Volumes might be written on
Yankee oppression of the poor Red-skins, and yet leave the disgraceful
story but half told.
Our train was crowded, and during the morning two rather well-dressed
black-eyed men came on board. The conductor told us they were the
pests of that part of the road--three card-monté men--and that in spite of
being carefully warned many travellers, especially amongst the
well-to-do farmer class emigrating to Manitoba, were daily fleeced by
them, there being no apparent redress, as they are sharp enough to
evade any direct breach of the law. These men succeeded in drawing
two boys of eighteen or twenty into their toils, and obtained possession
of their watches, as well as all the money they had about them. When
the lads protested vehemently, the sharpers offered to return the former
upon receipt of five dollars, which they knew their victims did not
possess. To our great relief, the men got off at the station where we

stopped for dinner.
We changed trains at Glyndon for the branch line, then only recently
laid to Fisher's Landing, but since that time continued to the frontier
station of Pembina. There was only one passenger car to hold all those
who had comfortably filled three on the other line, and it would be
difficult to convey any idea of the crowding and crushing that ensued to
obtain seats, and pack away the numerous travelling-bags and
provision-baskets brought by the emigrants from Ontario. Having
gentlemen with us, we were soon provided for; but just before the train
started, a very dirty, fashionably dressed young woman, carrying