O Spirit of the sunset! in thine hand This hollow of the forest brims with fire, And piling high to westward builds a pyre Of sombre spruces and black pines that stand, Ragged, and grim, and eaten through with gold. The arched east grows sweet With rose and orange, and the night a-cold Looms, and beneath her feet Still waters green and purple in strange schemes, Till twilight wakes the hoot-owl from his dreams." All these Highlands of Ontario are a part of the vast Laurentian range and they are characterised by a singular type of rugged and stately beauty. They are densely wooded; and the luxuriant maples in all their golden-green, that wonderfully vivid {120} emerald with a hint of gold caught from the sunshine in the summer, and their brilliant scarlet and amber in the early autumn; the fragrant balsams; the giant hemlocks; the tall pines that almost lead one to question George Eliot's assertion that "Care is taken that the trees do not grow into the sky," for the Canadian pine seems almost to pierce the sky--all this marvel of forest, with the shining lakes and sunlit glades, renders the Highlands of Ontario one of the wonders of the world. From Buffalo and Toronto to North Bay on Lake Nipissing, this entire region is traversed by the Grand Trunk System carrying summer wanderers through this enchanting scenery--hills, and lofty peaks, and woods, variegated with the silver expanse of lakes and flowing rivers; and if, perchance, one is travelling by night, it is rather delightful to raise the heavy curtain of the large window of a Pullman sleeper and watch the stars, and the sky, and the often weird effects of chiaroscuro. They not unfrequently suggest artistic creations. By night or by day it is all a spellbinding land, the celestial heavens glittering by night, the sunshine flooding the world with illumination by day; and silver mists, and ethereal shadows lurk in the deep pinewoods. To the initiate there are magic guides in all these haunts, unseen save of him who hath the "spirit-gifted eyes." The light of all the constellations that have ever looked down on earth since the morning-stars sang together is in these Canadian skies. For always is it true that {121} "The Muse can knit What is past, what is done, With the web that's just begun."