Rideau Hall had two open-air skating-rinks in its own grounds, two imposing toboggan-slides, and a covered curling-rink.  The “roaring game” is played in Canada with very heavy straight-sided iron “stones,” weighing from 50 to 60 lbs.  As the ice in a covered rink can be constantly flooded, it can be kept in the most perfect order, and with the heavy stones far greater accuracy can be attained than with the granite stones used in Scotland.  The game becomes a sort of billiards on ice.  The Rideau Hall team consisted of Lord Lansdowne himself, General Sir Henry Streatfield, a nephew of mine, and one of the footmen, who seemed to have a natural gift as a curler.  Our team were invincible in 1888.  At a curling-match against Montreal in 1887, a long-distance telephone was used for the first time in Canada.  Ottawa is 120 miles distant from Montreal, and a telephone was specially installed, and each “end” telephoned from Rideau Hall to Montreal, where the result was shown on a board, excitement over the match running high.  Montreal proved the victors.  On great occasions such as this, the ice of the curling-rink was elaborately decorated in colours.  It was very easily done.  Ready-prepared stencils, such as are used for wall-decoration, were laid on the ice, and various coloured inks mixed with water were poured through the stencil holes, and froze almost immediately on to the ice below.  In this fashion complicated designs of roses, thistles and maple-leaves, all in their proper colours, could be made in a very short time, and most effective they were until destroyed by the first six “ends.”  When the Governor-General’s time in Canada expired and he was transferred to India, the curlers of Canada presented him with a farewell address.  Lord Lansdowne made, I thought, a very happy reply.  Speaking of the regret he felt at leaving Ottawa, and at severing his many links of connection with Canada, he added that, bearing in view the climate of Bengal, he did not anticipate much curling in India, and that he would miss the “roaring game”; in fact, the only “roaring game” he was likely to come in contact with would probably take the unpleasant form of a Bengal tiger springing out at him.  Lord Lansdowne went on to say, “Let us hope that it will not happen that your ex-Governor-General will be found, not pursuing the roaring game, but being pursued by it.”

From skating daily, most of the Government House party became very expert, and could perform every kind of trick upon skates.  Lord and Lady Lansdowne and their two daughters, now Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Osborne Beauclerk, could execute the most complicated Quadrilles and Lancers on skates, and could do the most elaborate figures.