I was four days in Halifax, and on the ninth of August, I started alone. Dr. Grant who accompanied me on my first trip to the Pacific eleven years ago, had accepted the invitation to accompany me across the Rocky Mountains, and it was arranged that he should join me in Winnipeg. My second son was also to be of the party. He was to meet me in Toronto. My family went with me to the station. There was an unusual effort to say good-bye in starting on this long journey, but that matter has no interest here. It is only on alternate nights that the Pullman car runs through from Halifax to Montreal. On this occasion I had to leave Halifax by the Pullman which went no further than Moncton Junction, and with the other western passengers I had to wait there for the train to arrive from St. John. We reached Moncton at two o’clock in the morning, an hour not the most convenient for effecting the change. It is among the minor miseries of travelling to be obliged to turn out at such an hour for a coming train. But the fault was my own. Had I curtailed my brief sojourn in Halifax a few hours, or had my arrangements admitted of delay for another day, I would have had the advantage of a through Pullman without the inconvenience of a break at this place. Moncton is in New Brunswick, at the junction of the lines from Halifax and St. John, whence a common course is followed to the St. Lawrence. As I was sitting on the platform in the cool summer air before dawn, I could not but recollect that the 10th of August was one of the red letter days of my life. Thirty-one years back, on that day my railway career in Canada commenced. I was appointed as an Assistant-engineer on what was then known as the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway, afterwards developed into the Northern Railway of Canada, and of which I remained chief engineer for a number of years. The Montreal and Portland Railway was under construction. The Grand Trunk Railway had just been commenced, and with the exception of some small lengths of line, such as the Lachine, the La Prairie, and the Carillon Railways, it may be said that, at that date, railways had no working existence in Canada.