On the occasion of his last appearance in an official character he arrived to make his final inspection of the troops. After general parade the officers waited upon him to pay their last respects to one who had been the bulwark of Canada through her greatest vicissitudes. The leave-taking of their old General, whom they never expected to see again, was marked by the deepest feelings of regard and regret. His connection with Canadian history covered a period marked by events of a nature the most critical, the results of which will colour the entire future of the Dominion. [Illustration] Between the years eighteen thirty-seven and forty, when Canada was torn by internal rebellion, the Earl of Elgin, who was then Governor-General, drove in hot haste to the Chateau, where had sat the special council during the suspension of the Constitution. After giving the Queen's sanction to what was called by a certain party "The Rebel Indemnity Bill," he rushed into one door and out of another, when this Peer of the Realm, in all the dignity of coach and four, postillions and outriders, was pelted with rotten eggs and other unpleasant missiles. Then, in the dark of night, at the instance of some so-called politicians, the mob moved on to the Parliament buildings, and, most unfortunately for Montreal, deliberately set them on fire; which act resulted ultimately in the removal of the seat of government to Ottawa and the decline of the glory of the old Chateau. [Illustration] THE FUR KINGS. [Illustration: Sir William Alexander] It was to the French explorers whose names stand "conspicuous on the pages of half-savage romance," and to their successors the Scotch fur-kings, that we owe much of the geographical knowledge of the northern part of the Continent. There is some uncertainty as to who was the discoverer of the Mackenzie River, which carries its waters to the ice-fields of Polar seas, but it bears the name of one claimant to the distinction, Sir Alexander Mackenzie.