Tacoma for Cuba, returning by the Bahamas to New York; and sailing thence by the Cunard boat Servia (Captain McKay) for Liverpool, arrived there on a downright raw day on the 3rd of April, 1887, having been absent just ten months.

Not so very long ago travel like this would have astonished, and its particulars have been studied with avidity; and though it is not quite commonplace even now, yet the world is growing every day so much smaller and so much more familiar to all, even to those who stay at home (the number of those who move about constantly increasing), that the appetite of curiosity has been already fed by many caterers, and it may be asked where are we to look for sufficient novelty to engage attention, even in coursing over the globe? In some sort, Heligoland and Galápagos Island might excite more interest than New York itself, whither men of business, day after day, cross the Atlantic almost as familiarly as they cross the Channel to France. In proportion, however, as it has become more easy to see the world, the world has had more to show-a result of people having made their way, and opened the way, to formerly untrodden scenes, and established life in all its varied activity where mere curiosity had blankly gazed before.

Still, it is not only novelty that can please, for though "the first time" has always a charm peculiarly its own, either in seeing or hearing, so also is there great satisfaction in a revisit, or in reading

an account by another's pen of scenes where we have already wandered. Return you whence you may, it is a fact that you are sure to be met by many questions; so that it would seem the traveller's tongue or pen should be always welcome or unwelcome by his own fault only.

I am quite sure I could not say how many times the question has been put to me, "And what do you think of the States?" How could one answer this very usual form of examination ? If your travel has afforded no materials beyond those which would supply a corresponding offhand answer, you would indeed have very little to think, or even to talk, about. And so many things there are to think and talk. about after a visit to the New World-still the New World, even to its own self, notwithstanding all its astonishing achievements-that it is difficult to know where and under what title to begin relating one's experiences and impressions. Certainly I shall not attempt to be too profound-a very safely taken resolution, perhaps. But it is, nevertheless, necessary to establish this condition, for no one knows what some people may expect as the fruits of a few months' sojourn. I was, in truth, nearly knocked down by one question, the form of which I remember with some exactness, "Now that you have been there, what would you say was your opinion of the effects of republican institutions upon the morals, intellect, and genius of a young and aspiring nation?" When I had recovered, I replied simply (in more senses than

one, my interrogator may possibly have thought),

'My good sir, whatever the subject I may chance to touch upon, I shall paint it only as a sketch."

And now for my title. It is easy to single out a text and preach up to it; it is not always so easy to give a title to a book. Sterne says somewhere, in his usual flippant style, that if you chose your subject well, and treat it well, "Phrygia and Pamphylia would be just as good a text as any other. Scarcely daring to be able to satisfy the above two conditions, I have resolved to register a very abiding impression. that remains with me on my return, and therefore entitle my book "A Fight with Distances." On mentioning this to some Americans, they were much amused, and one of them, taking up the thought, suggested, "Distances and Dust."

CHAPTER II.

LIVERPOOL TO QUEBEC.

WE sailed from Liverpool on Thursday, the 10th of June, 1886, touching at Moville, Lough Foyle, for the mail, from Holyhead to Dublin, of the previous night. There was nothing to remark upon as to weather, save, indeed, that the wind, which on land had been long and steadfastly blowing from the east, imparting to our "gentle spring" that peculiar "ethereal mildness" which is now that delightful season's usual blessing, suddenly veered round at sea to the west, and continued to blow steadfastly and coldly from that direction during the whole passage, now and then making the vessel pitch and the screw race. She went along, however, well, and very steadily, this last feature being attributed (as I understood) to her double flange at or near the keel.

When fairly out at sea we were formally placed at table, and I at once realized the fact that we can scarcely be anywhere without finding or being found out, for, by mistaking one end of the table for the other, I went to claim my seat at the wrong side, and

by doing so stumbled upon a passenger whom I had never met before, but whose grandmother proved to be my godmother! This was Colonel Ravenhill, of the Artillery, who, with Colonel Philips of the 4th Hussars, was going out to Canada, commissioned by our Government to buy horses, accompanied by Veterinary Surgeon (First-Class) Mathews of the Blues. Colonel Philips was sitting opposite to my real place, and in his case also we soon discovered that we had common acquaintances.

It was a lady's seat I was about to claim wrongfully, and she turned out to be a Mrs. Bird, who was employing her life in educating English children, and bringing them out in groups from time to time for gaining their livelihood in Canada. She had some of them on board at that moment, and the distinguishing feature of her system, she informed me, is that she does not, like others, find them and propose to them to come out, but educates them in England first, with the express purpose of emigration. She has what she calls "Shelter Homes" in Liverpool, and a "Distribution Home" in Canada, "very near Montreal." "How far off?" I asked. "Could I visit it?" 'Only some seventy-five miles." Thus it is that they measure “very near" in vast Canada. She registers all their names, and all their movements from place to place and occupation to occupation, until they are twenty-one or are married; and there appears to be a constant inquiry for her "shipments" at the farmhouses and on the farms. Surely this seems, on