In the course of our return journey we stopped at Moose Jaw for supper, and then I witnessed a new development of prairie life in the shape of a thunder-storm, which seemed to me unusually vivid and protracted. The lightning was grand as it swept over the wide sea of grass, making everything as bright as noon-day, and then all was dark again. It brought us a rain that had really healing in its wings. While the heat lasted I was a martyr to prickly heat. It seemed to me that I was going to have small-pox or measles. I had little pimples all over me, and as to my wrists, they were really painful, and I could not keep from scratching with a vivacity which a Scotchman might have envied. Was it that vulgar disease to which, it is said, the gallant Scot is peculiarly liable? I could not say. I had shaken hands with so many filthy Indians, and it might be that, as I learn they are much afflicted in that way. Happily the thunder-storm cooled the air, and I felt all the better for it. When I got as far as Port Arthur, and inhaled the cool air of Lake Superior, I suffered no more from unpleasant irritation of the skin. It was with joy I embarked on the C.P.R.’s fine steamer, the _Alberta_, for Owen Sound. But even travelling on Lake Superior has its disadvantages. The water of the Lake is intensely cold, and when the sun beats fiercely on it there is sure to be a fog. Such happened to be the case on my return, and we ploughed slowly along for a while, seeing hardly anything of the beauty of the scene, while every few minutes we were cheered by the dismal notes of the fog-horn. Fortunately the fog lifted, and then what a display we had of islands, green as emerald, on the tranquil sea! I must add, also, I had good company everywhere, with the exception of the great Sir John M’Neill, who had his meals apart from us at a table all to himself, and an English clergyman from Staffordshire, whom a Canadian gentleman described to me as ‘a regular crank,’ whatever that may mean. The parson is going to write a book, so he tells the people; but he shuns me, which is a pity, as I met a friend at Calgary who told me they had great fun with the parson on their way up from Winnipeg, telling him all sorts of cock-and-bull stories, which he greedily entered in his note-book. I must give you one more sketch of a Canadian town as an illustration of the enterprise and pluck which are the main characteristics of the Canadian of to-day. If you look at the map, you will see Port Arthur is situated in Thunder Bay, and Thunder Bay, when you pass the rocky barrier by which it is encircled, opens out into Lake Superior.