I INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. HAVE been told that an introductory chapter is necessary ere the scattered papers of travel which are here brought together can be taken from the lower region of magazine literature, in which they have hitherto had existence, and, with a title bestowed upon them, be elevated or "shelved" into the upper world of books. I feel convinced, however, that no amount of preface, introductory chapter, or other preparatory preamble could succeed in imparting topographical sequence or literary unity to rambles, the theatres of which have lain so far removed from each other. To group together such separated scenes as the pine-woods and snow-sheeted lakes of the regions of the Hudson's Bay fur-trade with the treeless plains of Natal and the Dutch Republics, would be a task beyond even the focussing faculty of my old fishing friend, John Burns, of Derry-cluny. Burns was frequently in the habit of expatiating upon the |