TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION. THE true appreciation of the progress of any country in any branch of its industry depends upon the conditions under which that progress has been made: a glance, therefore, at physical, social, and political elements becomes a necessary introduction even to the limited field of its Travel and Transportation. The progress of Canada during the century which has elapsed since it became a British colony practically commenced about eighty years ago, or after the close of the contest between Great Britain and her revolting North-American colonies. Out of these eighty years, fifty at least, embrace the history of two provinces of unequal age, and two races, under different laws, language, religion, and (to a great degree) climates. These provinces have been hampered by a vacillating Imperial policy, while struggling for a commercial independence involving competition along a thousand miles of frontier with one of the foremost nations of the earth;-with a people tenfold their superiors in numbers and wealth, in quantity and variety of productions, and in the possession of their "treaty-making power" on their own continent-whereby they have derived manifest advantages in the settlement of every boundary question. The province of Canada, or of Quebec, by which names the whole of Canada was called after its seizure by the English, contained a French population between 60,000 and 70,000 in number, which, with two exceptions and the few settlements along the Detroit River, was confined within the bounds of Eastern or Lower Canada. At Frontenac (Kingston,) and at the outlet of Lake Erie, the old French forts were garri soned within the boundaries of Upper Canada; but those which commanded the Niagara and Detroit Rivers were upon the southern shore. As a colony of France, Canada was a semi-military organization, without any other exports than peltries. By becoming English, a privileged market for lumber and breadstuffs was opened to her in the British West-India Islands,-particularly valuable during and after the war of the Revolution, when the Atlantic colonies were excluded. In 1777 a British officer wrote that "there are saw-mills and grist-mills all over the province, and the | Canadians are enriching themselves by exporting lumber and grain to the West Indies."* This referred, of course, to Lower Canada; for, though Montreal fell, and a daring attempt was made at the outset of the Revolution to seize upon Quebec, the posts upon the lakes, although then one hundred years old, were surrounded by savages hostile to the cause of the insurgents. Upper Canada was at that period in the possession of the Northern Iroquois, a confederation of the most warlike of the native tribes; and there are those yet living who remember when,-save the few families around the precincts of the old French forts,—rot a white man could be found over all the vast area of Canada West. Toronto was then an Indian village whose warriors speared the salt-water salmon in her harbor, or chased the deer through the county of York, and their squaws then paddled among the rice-beds of the smaller lakes, and threshed out the wild grain over the gunwales of their canoes.† In the Western Peninsula the noble elk herded upon the prairies of St. Clair, or roamed over the oak forests, untroubled by the sound of the settler's axe, and swam the waters where paddle and screw barque and brig now plow their busy way. Myriads of wild pigeons from * In 1787, over 200,000 bushels of wheat were exported from Quebeo. In 1795, 400 to 500 pounds of wild rice were sold by the Indians in Kingston market. the South annually invaded the beech woods and bore down the branches by their weight; thousands of black squirrels from the East swam the broad Niagara, and marched westward in extended line; while flocks of gorgeously clad turkeys and plump-breasted quails stalked solemnly along the wild pathways of the forest, undisturbed by the hoarse roar of the locomotive or the rush of the railway train. In every narrow valley and upon every living streamlet, the laborious beaver arrested the rich alluvion and prepared broad meadows for the flocks and herds of the red man's successors. The hunter and the hunted have exterminated each other. The achievement of their independence by the revolted colonies expatriated all those whom loyalty to their king had placed upon the losing side; and fortunate it was for these villified and plundered fugitives that there yet remained for them upon this continent an asylum to which they could retire from the fierce persecution of the successful democrats. The impregnable fortress of Quebec on the east maintained communication with the mother country, while the forts of Oswego and Niagara-separated from the Atlantic settlements by vast forests-were cities of refuge to which the adherents of the king might flee under the guidance and protection of the friendly Mohawk. This northward emigration penetrated Canada by Lake Champlain on the east, by Oswego and Frontenac (Kingston) in the center, and by Niagara on the west. They came from as far south as the Carolinas, and their wagon-boxes, made water-tight, floated the wheels across rivers where no ferries were yet established. Many of those who entered by the eastern route moved westward to a milder climate, and to join those of their own language, faith, and municipal customs. This sudden influx of a British population into the province of Quebec-French in all but its allegiance,brought about the division into Upper and Lower Canada, |