Leaving London, March 3rd, 1841, the Governor called at Halifax, but disembarked at Boston, went by land to Montreal, and navigation being open on May 4th on the St. Lawrence, he and his party started and soon reached Ste. Anne, on Montreal Island. The evidence of the humour of Sir George's editor, who knew Montreal well, is seen in his referring to Moore's "Canadian Boat Song," in saying, "At Ste. Anne's Rapid, on the Ottawa, we neither sang our evening hymn nor bribed the Lady Patroness with shirts, caps, &c., for a propitious journey; but proceeded." Following the old canoe route, Georgian Bay and Lake Superior were soon passed over, though on the latter lake the expedition was delayed about a week by the ice, and here too Sir George met the sad news of the unfortunate death of his kinsman, Thomas Simpson, of whom we shall speak more fully in connection with Arctic exploration. Taking the route from Fort William by Kaministiquia, the travellers hastened over the course by way of Rainy Lake and River and Lake of the Woods. In referring to Rainy River the somewhat inflated style of the editor makes Sir George speak without the caution which every fur trader was directed to cultivate in revealing the resources of the fur country. A decade afterwards Mr. Roebuck, before the Committee of the House of Commons, "heckled" Sir George over this fulsome passage. The passage is: "From the very brink of the river (Rainy River) there rises a gentle slope of greenwood, crowned in many places with a plentiful growth of birch, poplar, beech, elm, and oak. Is it too much for the eye of philanthropy to discern, through the vista of futurity, this noble stream, connecting, as it does, the fertile shores of two spacious lakes, with crowded steamboats on its bosom and populous towns on its borders?" Following the usual route by River Winnipeg, Lake Winnipeg, and Red River, Fort Garry was soon reached, and here the Governor somewhat changed his plans. He determined to cross the prairies by light conveyances, and accordingly on July 3rd, at five in the morning, with his fellow-travellers, with only six men, three horses, and one light cart, the Emperor of the Plains left Fort Garry under a salute and with the shouting of the spectators, as he started on his journey to skirt the winding Assiniboine River.