post he held.  A. socially smaller man would have made a much better customs official.  Unfortunately for the comfort of the public, the remuneration attached to appointments in the postal and customs departments is frequently very large, and these situations are eagerly sought as prizes in the lottery of political life-prizes, too, which can only be held for the short term of four years.  As.  A consequence, the official who holds his situation by right of political service rendered to the chief of the predominant clique or party in his state does not consider that he owes to the public the service of his office.  In theory he is a public servant; in reality he becomes the master of the public.  This is, however, the fault of the system and not of the individual.

CHAPTER THREE

Bunker—­New York—­Niagara-Toronto-Spring—­time in Quebec—­A Summons—­A
Start—­In good Company—­Stripping a Peg—­An Expedition—­Poor Canada—­An
Old Glimpse at a New Land—­Rival Routes—­Change of Masters—­The Red River
Revolt—­The Halfbreeds—­Early Settlers-Bungling—­“Eaters of Pemmican-"-M. 
Louis Riel—­The Murder of Scott

When a city or a nation has but one military memory, it clings to it with all the affectionate tenacity of an old maid for her solitary poodle or parrot.  Boston-supreme over any city in the Republic-can boast of possessing one military memento:  she has the Hill of Bunker.  Bunker has long passed into the bygone; but his hill remains, and is likely to remain for many a long day.  It is not improbable that the life, character and habits, sayings, even the writings of Bunker-perhaps he couldn’t write!-are familiar to many persons in the United States; but it is in Boston and Massachusetts that Bunker holds highest carnival.  They keep in the Senate-chamber of the Capitol, nailed over the entrance doorway in full sight of the Speaker’s chair, a drum, a musket, and a mitre-shaped soldier’s hat-trophies of the fight fought in front of the low earthwork on Bunker’s Hill.  Thus the senators of Massachusetts have ever before them visible reminders of the glory of their fathers:  and I am not sure that these former belongings of some long-waistcoated redcoat are not as valuable incentives to correct legislation as that historic “bauble” of our own constitution.

Meantime we must away.  Boston and New York have had their stories told frequently enough-and, in reality, there is not much to tell about them.  The world does not contain a more uninteresting accumulation of men and houses than the great city of New York:  it is a place wherein the stranger feels inexplicably lonely.  The traveller has no mental property in this city whose enormous growth of life has struck scant roots into the great heart of the past.

Our course, however, lies west.  We will trace the onward stream of empire in many portions of its way; we will reach its limits, and pass beyond it into the lone spaces which yet silently await its coming; and farther still, where the solitude knows not of its approach and the Indian still reigns in savage supremacy.