on his skates.  Some malicious young Montrealers of tender age, noticing this, deliberately bumped into him again and again, sending his conspicuous white figure spinning each time.  Poor Romeo’s experiences were no more fortunate on the rink than in the tragedy associated with his name; by the end of the evening, after his many tumbles, his draggled white silk dress suggested irresistibly the plumage of a soiled dove.

A hill (locally known as “The Mountain”) rises immediately behind Montreal, the original Mont Real, or Mount Royal, from which the city derives its name.  This naturally lends itself to the formation of toboggan slides, and one of them, the “Montreal Club Slide,” was really terrifically steep.  The start was precipitous enough, in all conscience, but soon came a steep drop of sixty feet, at which point all the working parts of one’s anatomy seemed to leave one, to replace themselves at the finish only.  The pace was so tremendous that it was difficult to breathe, but it was immensely exciting.  The Montreal slide was just one-third of a mile long, and the time occupied in the descent on good ice was about twenty seconds, working out at sixty miles an hour.  Every precaution was taken against accidents; there was a telephone from the far end, and no toboggan was allowed to start until “track clear” had been signalled.  Everything in this world is relative.  We had thought our Ottawa slides very fast, though the greatest speed we ever attained was about thirty miles an hour, whilst at home we had been delighted if we could coax fifteen miles an hour out of our rough machines.  The Lansdowne boys were very expert on toboggans, and could go down the Ottawa slides standing erect, a thing no adult could possibly manage.  They had fitted their machines with gong-bells and red and green lanterns, and the “Ottawa River Express” would come whizzing down at night with bells clanging and lights gleaming.

I can claim to be the absolute pioneer of ski on the American continent, for in January, 1887, I brought my Russian ski to Ottawa, the very first pair that had ever been seen in the New World.  I coasted down hills on them amidst universal jeers; every one declared that they were quite unsuited to Canadian conditions.  The old-fashioned raquettes had their advantages, for one could walk over the softest snow in them.  Here, again, I fancy that it was the sense of man triumphant over Nature that made snow-shoeing so attractive.  The Canadian snow-shoe brings certain unaccustomed muscles into play, and these muscles show their resentment by aching furiously.  The French habitants term this pain mal de raquettes.  In my time snow-shoe tramps at night, across-country into the woods, were one of the standard winter amusements of Ottawa, and the girls showed great dexterity in vaulting fences with their snow-shoes on.

A Canadian winter is bathed in sunshine.  In the dry, crisp atmosphere distant objects are as clear-cut and hard as though they were carved out of wood; the air is like wine, and with every breath human beings seem to enter on a new lease of life.