I took the afternoon train for Ottawa. In Montreal the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway is at Dalhousie Square. It extends from Notre Dame street, at a lower level, to the quay, and it would be difficult to find a more striking site for a railway station. For upwards of a mile the line runs along the side of the harbour, and you have in view the bold landscape produced by the river and St. Helen’s Island. To the west Victoria Bridge stands out in bold relief, and, in spite of its massiveness, it spans the river with the most graceful of lines. The harbour of Montreal during the season of navigation is always more or less full of shipping, among which the ocean steamer predominates. In winter it presents a totally different appearance. The river is a field of ice, often cumbered with Cyclopean masses, distorted by “shoves” into most picturesque forms, often a scene in all respects striking and rarely met. The railway, on leaving Montreal, passes through a really charming landscape. Crossing two branches of the St. Lawrence, at Sault-au-Recollet and Rivière-des-Prairies, it touches the River Ottawa, and continues generally in sight of the river till it reaches the capital. Twenty miles east the line passes directly over the falls of Le Lievre, at Buckingham, which form an object of special attraction. On approaching Ottawa we cross the long iron bridge over the river, and see the city lying before us, and the outline of the Government buildings, with their peculiar architecture, almost suggesting that you are entering some mediæval city. At no period of the year, except during the three months when the House is in session, is there any particular animation in the Capital. Parliament meets in February, occasionally in January, and continues its sittings until April or May. From Christmas to the opening of the House the Government offices are unusually active in the preparation of documents to be laid before Parliament. Strangers arrive a week before the day of the opening. There is a constant succession of new faces in the streets. The Ministers commence their series of dinners, the intention of which is to affirm their political influence, but clothed with all the graces of social attraction. Those in the city proper who can entertain do so at this season. The Club, which for the remaining nine months can number in its rooms its visitors by tens, is then crowded, and the hotels are full of busy, bustling individuals engaged in the many schemes which await the countenance of Parliament, and the dining-room in the evening has the fullest attendance.