As a rule we take our meals when the train is in motion, so that we can utilize the various halts to obtain information from those we may meet at the stations. There is a change to be made in the composition of the train at this point. The sleeping car goes no further, and a number of cars loaded with material for construction purposes are appended. We are really from this point half a construction train. There is only one ordinary passenger car, with the private car occupied by our party. Our speed, too, is reduced. It seemed to me somewhat churlish to retain to ourselves all the comfort and accommodation the directors had so liberally extended to me and mine, when there were others I knew on the train not so fortunately circumstanced. I was therefore glad to be of use to some of my fellow passengers. Our party became thus increased by the Baron de Longueuil, Dr. Grant the younger, of Ottawa, and other gentlemen. We pass Gull Lake and Cypress Stations, 554 miles from Winnipeg, north of the Cypress Hills. Not a tree or shrub is to be seen; the lofty ground to the south of us is perfectly bare; the country is dry, the herbage scanty. On the other hand there are plain indications that the country is not barren and worthless. It has been described by some people as a semi-desert. So far as my memory will admit the comparison, the soil resembles in colour and character that of the Carse of Gowrie in Perthshire. Those who remember that section of Scotland will perceive the force of the comparison. The ditches and excavations expose a fine fertile clay soil, not only on the surface but to the whole depth of the cuttings. On the recently formed road-bed, in the bottoms of ditches, there are tufts of green oats growing vigorously twenty-four inches high, each plant with twelve to twenty strong stalks sticking out from a single root. This scattered growth, so luxuriant in itself, has arisen from the seed dropped from trains or the horse’s feed, during construction, without any attempt at cultivation. It is true that the herbage is brown and dried up, but not more so than I have frequently seen it in Ontario at this season. I cannot speak of the country from Moose Jaw to Qu’Appelle, for it was night when we passed through it, but from what I heard at the various stations the land is good; and generally it may be affirmed that in the five hundred and fifty miles of territory between Swift Current and Winnipeg the waste and worthless land is scarcely appreciable.