Ro The landscape department is, as usual, very abundant. Creswick, exhibiting his command on atmosphere, gives some of his best specimens. Lee still throws patches of sun-light through foliage of his trees. berts produces a noble view of Edinburgh, and Stanfield, piling mountain upon mountain, represents a march of the French army, which is among the most striking pieces in the collection. And we must request our readers not to overlook the little circular picture of H. Bright, although it modestly conceals itself in the corner. It represents a ruined castle on the Rhine, and while the general view is illumined by a moon which shines brightly from a deep blue sky, the setting sun is indicated by a light which falls on the building, and which thus makes the focus of the work. The Sculpture-room is not very remarkable, though we have here and there some striking works. Mac Dowall's "Virginius and his Daughter" is a vigorous group, by an artist, who has hitherto confined himself to subjects of a gentle nature, and who this year gives us a pretty figure of a "Girl Mourning over a Dead Bird." For animation and feeling, we may look to the listening "Sabrina," and the wounded "Euridice," of Marshall, who is more life-like than any of his brother-sculptors. Then there is Bailey's statue of "Sir N. C. Tyndal"-an excellent likeness, excellently draped in modern costume. But sculpture does not flourish among us as in a genial soil, and so thinks the Royal Academy, for it bestows on this department of art a room rather fitted for the purpose of concealment than of exhibition. WHEN we two parted all I heard from thee I will remember thee-and from my heart The past is nothing, and our hopes are o'er, Or if we do meet it will be in vain, That past-those hopes-can ne'er be ours again. Yet will I give thee all that thou dost crave, Thou too with me these memories wilt share, SIR GEORGE SIMPSON'S NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD.* 1.-UPPER canada. SIR GEORGE SIMPSON might have traversed other countries, such as Central Africa or Australia, with more benefit to geographical knowledge; but it would be impossible to have travelled in peopled, yet little known countries so replete with interest as those, the descriptions of which are comprised in this "Narrative of a Journey Round the World." Commencing his travels among the English citizens of a young republic, which is at the present moment doubling its original territory, without any visible or conceivable obstacle in the way of its almost indefinite extension; Sir George proceeds to a conquered province, where the descendants of the first possessors, however inferior in wealth and influence, have every reason, he asserts, to rejoice in the defeat of their fathers; and thence following one continuous series of English posts that stud the wilderness from the Canadian lakes to the Pacific Ocean, he plies his way from the isolated yet progressive colony of the Red River across prairies and Rocky mountains to the disputed territory of Columbia, to which, by the very force of circumstances, an eventful future must necessarily be attached. Then again in California we have before us the fragment of the grandest of colonial empires, where English adventurers (with that innate power which makes every individual, whether Briton or American, a real representative of his country and his race), already monopolise the trade and influence the destinies of the country. In the Sandwich Islands we can contemplate the noblest of all triumphs, the slow but sure victory of the highest civilisation over the lowest barbarism. English merchants and English missionaries now sway the destinies of an Archipelago, which promises, under their care and guidance, to become the centre of the traffic of the East and West, of the New World and the Old. And lastly we cannot but look to the immense acquisitions of Russia in Asia, without that profound interest and those peculiar feelings as Englishmen, which must be excited in perusing the actual condition, in its distant settlements, and in territories untrodden by observing travellers, of the only possible rival of our own country in the extent and variety of moral and political influence. Sir George Simpson sailed from Liverpool on the 4th of March, 1841, accompanied by four or five gentlemen connected with the Hudson's Bay Company's service. The party was destined to experience on its traverse the very storm in which in all probability the President was lost. Arriving at Boston on the forenoon of the 20th, they proceeded the same evening by Lowell-the Manchester of New England-to Nashua, and thence night and day they travelled onwards by sleigh, till the ice of the St. Lawrence presented them with a ready means of reaching Montreal. Hurry is throughout the order of the day. The plains, mountains, rivers, and forests of North America are traversed for a distance of * Narrative of a Journey Round the World, during the years 1841 and 1842. By Sir George Simpson, Governor-in-Chief of the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories in North America. 2 vols. Henry Colburn. nearly two thousand miles in six weeks and five days, and from Ochotsk to St. Petersburg, the whole length of the Asiatic continent, or about seven thousand miles, is crossed in ninety-one days, and nearly one-half as many nights. Sir George appears to have been thoroughly infected with the American passion for getting on. Many great objects, as we shall afterwards see, were accomplished during this remarkable journey, and there apparently remained plenty of time for interesting remarks and useful observation, but the most prominent impression, after all, on arriving at the conclusion of the narrative, is that the greatest of all objects was to get over the ground. With such a field before us, the reader would scarcely thank us for detaining him in the United States or the Canadian territories; but we have a more important reason for neglecting these countries at the present moment, inasmuch as the consideration of this part of the subject will be taken up at a future opportunity in this Magazine by more competent hands. The season being more backward than usual, the state of the river did not allow of their departure from Montreal until the 4th of May, when they started up the Ottawa for nearly four hundred miles, turning into the Matawa, and thence across the water-shed to Lake Nipissing, where they parted with Colonel Oldfield, who had accompanied our travellers so far for the purposes of surveying the country with respect to the means of navigation. The resting-place of the previous station is characteristically described by Sir George as bad-"the ground damp, the water muddy, the frogs obstreperous, and the snakes familiar. In spite, however, of all these trifles, fatigue was as good as an opiate, and in sound sleep we soon forgot the troubles of the day." At the outlet of the Nipissing they saw the first savages, who, though poorly clad, appeared to be faring well. The current of French River, although obstructed by rapids which necessitated several "portages,' carried them swiftly downwards to Lake Huron, whence they had the prospect before them, with the single exception of Sault Sainte Marie, of seven or eight hundred miles of still water to the head of Lake Superior. The celebrated strait above-mentioned, which empties Lake Superior into Lake Huron, has a British settlement, with a post of the Hudson's Bay Company on the one side, and an American village with an inconsiderable garrison on the other. The mortification of the party may be easily imagined, when, on arriving at this point in their journey, they learnt that the ice of Lake Superior was still as firm and as solid as in the depth of winter. This was on the 16th of May, and their fourteenth day from Montreal. Yet the sun was already powerful, and budding flowers and numerous birds attested the approach of spring-the warm weather, indeed, made the ice a pleasant addition to the wine-andwater, and their least disagreeable prospect appears to have been that of eating their way through the luxury. At length, on the night of the 19th, a slight breeze broke the field which had so pertinaciously resisted the sun's rays, though the masses continued to be closely packed, and after a hard day's work they accomplished about thirty miles. Their progress was much embarrassed by the mirage, which at one time deceived them with the appearance of an island, at another with that of open water, and then again with impenetrable icebergs. Arrived at Michipicoton, after overcoming numerous difficulties, the governor held a temporary council for the southern department, after which progress was more easy and the lake more open, enabling them to sail past Thunder mountain, a bleak rock rising with a perpendicular face to the west 1200 feet out of the lake. "One of the most appalling objects of the kind," Sir George, says "that I have ever seen. The Indians have a superstition, which can hardly be repeated without becoming giddy, that any person who may scale the eminence and turn thrice round on the brink of its fearful wall will live for ever." Luckily the barren and forbidding rocks of Lake Superior have lately become an object of intense interest, and promise one day to rival in point of mineral wealth the Altai and Uralian mountains. Stepping ashore, at length, at Fort William, at the upper extremity of the lake, the canoes were exchanged for smaller vessels to overcome the difficulties which are announced by the very name of the riverKaministaquoia. At this point Governor Simpson had an interview with a band of Saulteaux or Chippeway Indians, whose orator, a tall, handsome man, somewhat advanced in years, addressed the Europeans fluently, and with the air of a prince, arrayed in a scarlet coat with bright buttons, perfectly new, but from want of nether garments, or from a Highland taste, the tail of his shirt was made to answer the purpose of a kilt. The little squadron started merrily, and in full song, up the beautiful river beyond whose verdant banks formed a striking and a greater contrast with the sterile and rugged coast of Lake Superior. The first obstacle was the falls of the Kakabeka, which are inferior in volume alone to those of Niagara, and have the advantage of their far-famed rival in height of fall and wildness of scenery. "The river," says Sir George, "during the day's march, passed through forests of elm, oak, pine, birch, &c., being studded with isles not less fertile and lovely than its banks; and many a spot reminded us of the rich and quiet scenery of England. The paths of the numerous portages were spangled with violets, roses, and many other wild flowers, while the currant, the gooseberry, the raspberry, the plum, the cherry, and even the vine, were abundant. All this bounty of nature was imbued, as it were, with life by the cheerful notes of a variety of birds, and by the restless flutter of butterflies of the brightest hues. Compared with the adamantine deserts of Lake Superior, the Kaministaquoia presented a perfect paradise. "One cannot pass through this fair valley without feeling that it is destined, sooner or later, to become the happy home of civilised men, with their bleating flocks and their lowing herds, with their schools and their churches, with their full garners and their social hearths. At the time of our visit the great obstacle in the way of so blessed a consummation was the hopeless wilderness to the eastward, which seemed to bar for ever the march of settlement and cultivation. But that very wilderness, now that it is to yield up its long hidden stores, bids fair to remove the very impediments which hitherto it has itself presented. The mines of Lake Superior, besides establishing a continuity of route between the east and the west, will find their nearest and cheapest supply of agricultural produce in the valley of the Kaministaquoia." This is a bright and cheering glimpse into futurity, which offers a comfortable relief to the state of things nearer home. Beyond the Dog's Portage, a country of hill and dale, chequered with the varied tints of the pine, the aspen, the ash, and the oak, with the silvery stream of the Kaministaquoia, meandering through the heart of this lovely district, led way to the heights which separate the waters of the great Canadian June.-VOL. LXXX. NO. CCCXVIII. the lakes from those of the Hudson's Bay territories, and at the same time divide the two territories from one another. II. THE HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORIES. The entrance into the Hudson's Bay territories was effected by descending the River Embarras, so named from the great number of fallen trees that obstruct its channel, after which they crossed the beautiful lake of a Thousand lakes to the French Portage, considered to be the worst in that part of the country, and thence, by Sturgeon Lake, they proceeded into the Maligne, and by Lac la Croix to the Macan. "At nearly all the rapids and falls," says Sir George, " on these two rivers, the Indians have erected platforms which stretch about twenty feet from the shore; and on these they fix themselves, spear in hand, for hours, as silent and motionless as possible, till some doomed fish comes within the range of their unerring weapon. If they take more sturgeon than what they immediately require, they tether the supernumeraries by a string, through the mouth and gill, to the bank.” This latter practice prevails also on the Danube, only that the fish are generally tethered on the latter river to the stern of a boat. After traversing Lac la Pluie and five or six miles of the river of the same name, the party reached Fort Frances, where they were saluted by about a hundred Saulteaux, the warriors of a band of about five hundred souls, who had come to address the governor upon such matters as concerned them, and who being referred to the next morning, erected a conjuring tent, and muttered charms, shook rattles, and committed offerings to the flames during the whole night, singing, whooping, and dancing at intervals, to propitiate Sir George in their favour. These Saulteaux have dwindled down from being one of the most powerful tribes in the country to some three or four thousand souls, and even this inconsiderable number, though scattered over a vast extent of territory can scarcely keep body and soul together. The hunting grounds of the tribe have been nearly exhausted, and though the soil is fertile, producing wild rice in abundance, the savages are too proud to become, as they loftily express themselves, "troublers of the earth." Upon this present occasion their chief complaint was that the exchange of rum for furs had been discontinued. "The river which empties Lac la Pluie into the Lake of the Woods is," says Sir George Simpson, "in more than one respect, decidedly the finest stream in the whole route. From Fort Frances downwards, a stretch of nearly a hundred miles, it is not interrupted by a single impediment, while yet the current is not strong enough materially to retard an ascending traveller. Nor are the banks less favourable to agriculture than the waters themselves to navigation, resembling in some measure those of the Thames near Richmond. From the very brink of the river, there rises a gentle slope of green sward, 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 steam-boats on its bosom, and populous towns on its borders ?" The river which empties the Lake of the Woods into Lake Winipeg, forms so many rapids and falls along its rocky channel, that its length of more than two hundred miles is broken by no less than thirty-seven portages. Passing the two establishments of Rat Portage and Fort Alex |