Guide Links Part 4

CHAPTER FOUR
CANADA
TRAVELLING about and doing a world tour is altogether a joy to me, but there are two black blots in it—at least they are really GREY blots, they are not really blotty enough blots to be called quite black.
The first minor one is the bother of luggage, and How we wish we could just have fur or feathers to suit all climates and not have to worry about clothes and perpetual packing and unpacking.
The other trouble is the constant saying good-bye. At all our many ports of call, we just pop in, see the Scouts and Guides and do all the appointed tasks ; and then in a few hours off we go again, and I HATE saying farewell to all the many friends that one makes en route, just as you are getting to know them.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
Our tour across Canada started on the west coast—in British Columbia—and this enormous Province is very beautiful indeed.
It also has an interesting history, owing to being an early settlement of Red Indian tribes, even before any white people came to explore and live there.
The Guides of British Columbia have taken as the crest for their shoulder badges the sign of the Thunder Bird. This mythical creature is depicted on a huge totem pole which stands in Stanley Park at Vancouver. I was told that many of the older Red Indian people believed that he was not a mere idol, but a powerful mystic emblem, and their " medicine men " proved him to be a beneficent god under whose protection would come Brotherhood, Peace, Plenty, and Good Will.
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When he flaps his wings and blinks his eyes it rains and storms, and all the evil spirits are driven to the lonely high mountain ranges.
On the totem pole below the Thunder Bird is the figure of a bear, and as this denotes Strength and Wisdom, this Thunder Bird totem badge that the Guides have adopted brings to the fore good qualities for us to think of, and it is attractive and unusual to look at as well.
We had a delightful out-of-door Rally at Victoria and I was also able to visit an Extension Company in a very up-to-date hospital. This is called the Solarium, and the patients, as the word suggests, are being bathed in sunshine, lying out in their beds on lovely wide verandahs overlooking an arm of the sea. This Company is also lucky in another way, for they have their own private cosy little log cabin where they can have their meetings and picnics. You can imagine what a delight it is for these patients to go off into the woodland and feel they are to a certain extent in the wilds, even though they may have to be carried there in spinal carriages and wheeled chairs.
And a little farther up Vancouver Island is an especially attractive Company, at a Boarding School at Duncan. Each Patrol here has its own wooden cabin home, in which the members can collect and keep their own special Patrol treasures, and in which each can meet privately if it likes.
It is true that in the winter they cannot get to their wee log huts because of the deep snow and ice and boggy ground
und • but when I went there the trees were just beginning to burst their buds, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the scenery was quite lovely and rather like England's peaceful countryside in spring.
From Vancouver Island we sailed across to the mainland, doing in those five hours what is perhaps one of the most beautiful voyages in the world. It was a divine sun-kissed day as our ship threaded its way through the

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still, narrow waterways between small, rocky, fir-clad islands, the trees coming right down to the water's edge, their reflections showing up black and clear in the smooth surface of the glassy sea.
In the gathering dusk we arrived at Vancouver, a big busy modern city, which has grown up in a comparatively short space of time into an important port and business centre.
The lady with whom I stayed there lived just outside the city boundary, and she told me that when first she had come to live at Vancouver some forty years ago she had walked about through trail-less undergrowth, scrambling through dense wild forest untouched by human hands, on the exact spot where now stands there an enormous super-luxurious hotel. It seems a miracle of civilisation that a huge handsome town can be built up and peopled in the short space of half a lifetime.
A splendid Rally had been arranged for us in Vancouver, some 6,00o Scouts and Guides and masses of Cubs and Brownies. It was splendidly organised and as fine a show as any of you have ever seen.
Twenty-four hours later, journeying on our way towards the Rocky Mountains, we were able to stop for a day at the country town of Kamloops. No big Rally had been held there before, so there was great enthusiasm amongst the Scouts and Guides of the town and neighbourhood, and the grown-up inhabitants as well.
When I say " neighbourhood," don't picture to yourselves small villages near at hand, and lots of houses and hamlets, and tidy little fields and hedges. This is a land of enormous distances, where miles are reckoned in hundreds instead of in tens, and the country is wild and much of it unexplored even now. Five hundred Scouts and Guides travelled in from out-lying homesteads and townships, doing each an average mileage of z z 5 miles or more, to get to the Rally and then back home again ; so that it was roughly estimated that the five hundred

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visitors coming that day to Kamloops had between them travelled a total distance of about II2,500 miles
Many of them had never been in a train before, as they live right out in the backwoods, far from the nearest railway, and the excitement of seeing a shop and going to a cinema was, of course, intense. It was perhaps the most eventful and thrilling day in most of these young peoples' lives.
An old friend of mine, who had once been a Guider in Somerset, and who now lives at a farm in that district, travelled sixty miles to see me, and told me that she had not seen anybody at all excepting her husband and her own children for four months during this last winter. She brought with her her wee three-year-old son, as she hopes he will be a Scout some day, and felt it would be nice for him to see the Chief Scout as he passed by. However, the poor little man, never having seen a stranger before at such close quarters, and being so alarmed at the sight of a huge engine and a crowd of strange human beings, could not be persuaded to shake hands or say how do you do. His mother, as a keen Guide, was very distressed at this, and feels that he will go down to posterity as The Only Boy who Refused to Shake the Hand of the World Chief Scout I
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS
Don't you love a holiday—specially when you think you have earned it ? I do I I don't get many, but at this stage of our tour a holiday came in sight, and our spirits rose at the thought of it. Our great, heavy, long train rises too, as we wend our way ever upwards, mile after mile, into the heart of the vast range of mountains which stretches, like the backbone of an animal, right down the West Coast of the great Continent of North America.
It is perhaps the most beautiful train journey in the world, as we wind through immense wooded gorges, with great dashing, splashing rivers sweeping down

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through narrow canyons at the bottom. Huge snowcapped peaks tower steeply above us on every side, and now and again one catches a glimpse of the higher distant crags, surrounded by eternal snow glistening in the radiant sunshine, the cloud shadows chasing each other across the upper slopes, and jagged, steep edges showing up hard and black where the rock cleaves through the whiteness, and the thick shining blanket of snow falls away in an avalanche to the valley below. Two colossal engines are needed to pull the heavy load up the steep gradients ; we pass through tunnels, across high bridges spanning rushing, raging torrents ; we dive under " snow sheds " (long wooden shelters to keep the snow from the track) and eventually we arrive at " the Great Divide."
This is the highest point reached by the railway, and here the rivers carrying the ice water from the snow fields above have to make up their minds whether to run westwards to the Pacific, eastwards to the Atlantic, or northwards to the Arctic Ocean.
And so we arrive at Banff, and surrounded by all this grandeur we spend three halcyon days in sparkling sunlight, and bracing, clear, frosty air, with the quiet and peace of the woods all around us and the sound of the Bow River murmuring in the distance.
Nature is at her best here, and besides all the exquisite beauty of the scenery we are able to see some wild animals in their natural habitat. Dainty-footed mule deer come shyly to the edge of the railway track, watching with anxious eyes and listening with eagerly twitching ears and noses, luring us to come and photograph them, only to be thwarted in the attempt by their dashing off with elastic springy bounds into the undergrowth. The baying of wolves and howling of coyotes can be heard in the stillness of the night, and a herd of bison are preserved in the National Park here where visitors can see them in safety. People are allowed to drive

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through their enclosure by car, but it is not safe to venture in on foot, for a bison may quite easily go for you if he sees you close at hand. He doesn't seem to mind a car on four wheels, but he doesn't like a person on two legs
Driving along the road in search of beaver, we were lucky, on rounding a corner, to come face to face with a little flock of rare mountain sheep. They bounded up the steep face of the rocks, and then stopped to stare at us. It was a wonderful moment, seeing them there like that, standing as one sees them in pictures, silhouetted against the sky, noble, unapproachable, the wild thing in its wild surroundings, with the divinely lovely background of mountain peaks and storm-shattered tree trunks, gaunt beside the quiet ice-rimmed lake.
A beaver " lodge " is a fascinating concern, and so are the beavers themselves. The " lodge," built in the middle of dammed-up pools of lakes and rivers, is made from heaps and heaps of logs, small lengths of trees about a foot long, all piled in an untidy-looking jumble on top of each other. When a colony of beavers start building its " home town " they cut down hundreds of trees, biting right through at the base with their sharp little teeth.
All the land for acres round their lodge is covered with short cut-off tree stumps where they have laid low the forest growth of alders, which is the chief wood that they use for the purpose. Like the most skilled woodsman, a beaver knows in some uncanny way just how to cut down the trees so that they will drop in exactly the right direction. They then cut the whole log into small pieces and float them down the stream to build the lodge itself, or to be used for damming up the water round it. The lodge, though untidy on the outside, is cleverly constructed on the inside, and is made in such a way that the actual entrance is under water to make the occupants safe from prying enemies. But on the inside the house

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is arranged so that the beaver can sit and lie on ledges use above the level of the water.
They are most wonderfully clever, and simply delicious to look at. If we wanted to see beavers we had to go out at night to try to catch them at work. Out we went, into the biting cold after dark, and we waited and waited, peering into the darkness, armed with electric torches and the head-lights of the car.
After about half an hour we were almost beginning to give up. hope, when suddenly there was a faint swish of water, and there, gliding silently towards us, without making a ripple on the still water of the lake, was a small head, and two pin-points of gleaming eyes shining in the light of the torch. The sleek little fellow hurried past, swirled round and came back again, rather puzzled by this strange light, and then swam quickly on once more. In a few minutes we saw his brother and his uncle, his cousin and his aunt, his wife and his sister, all swimming busily hither and thither, and we could hear little noises of biting and chewing as they got to work cutting down and preparing more timber for their " town."
It was a most fascinating sight, to see this little creature doing his day's work—or I should say his night's work—making his house not only for himself but for the whole community. In many ways they are an example to us humans, as they always pull together as a team in playing the game and making their house a safe home in which they can all live happily and safely together, a busy, thrifty, careful crowd of brave brown beasties.
Banff is very proud of being the centre of the Reserve for wild animals, and the roads in the town are named after animals, so that you walk along Lynx Road into Bear Street, which in turn leads you down Moose Street and out on to Wolf Road, along Bison Street on to Beaver Street and so on.
National parks have been instituted in many parts of

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Canada, huge stretches of thousands of acres of land being kept free from trapping and shooting and hunting in order that the animals which were in danger of being exterminated might be preserved for all time. Trappers had been recklessly killing bears and wolves and beavers for their valuable furs ; moose and deer for their skins and horns ; whilst bison had been completely exterminated at one time. So at last the Canadian Government stepped in, made new laws for the protection of her country's precious animal life, brought some more bison in from the neighbouring country of America, and now, thanks to the protection they have, these beasts are increasing in numbers and large herds are roaming at will over the large expanse of these beautiful national parks.
The park that we stayed in covers over three thousand square miles of land, but the bigger one, Jasper Park, which is farther north, covers over seven thousand square miles. You would almost think that there wouldn't be any country left after that, but on the map of Canada these parks look quite small—rather like a county might look on the map of England—and it is impossible to visualise the immensity of Canada till you have been there and travelled across it.
RAILWAYS
Someone has dared to say that Romance is a thing of the past, and that, in these busy up-to-date days of this twentieth century in which we live, there is no time or opportunity for romantic happenings. NONSENSE 1 It is there all the time for those who have eyes to see it, or the heart to feel it, and the sense to be thrilled by it. There is the romance of history to be felt and seen in all old buildings, in the grass-grown lawns and courts of the ancient castles and abbeys of which there are so many that you can visit scattered over our own little United Kingdom. There is romance to be found any

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day at dawn, when darkness lifts its soothing hand, when the sun first touches the sleeping world and catches country, town, and village " in his noose of light." There is the romance of poetry, of art, of endeavour, of religion, of exploration, of the love between men and women ; and there is always the romance of beauty in the views around you, if your eyes are open to them, whether these be across hills and dales, over green forests and pasture land, or even between grey walls and blackened chimneys.
There is romantic beauty to be seen in the shimmering reflection of a street lamp on a wet pavement, or in the murky glow of the sun setting beyond a cloud of smoke, just as there is in a dew-spangled bracken frond in a golden wood in autumn time.
There is vivid romance to be found at seaports, where ships are for ever putting in and sailing out, and there is no more romantic story in the world than the history of the conquering of the sea by man.
It is a stirring tale of the past and present, and you can read in your geography books so much that is inspiring in the accounts of the way in which those men of long ago set out from their homes to explore into the unknown, to sail into strange lands, braving every conceivable hardship and danger, showing the endurance and pluck of heroes, the courage and fortitude of martyrs.
And now, thanks to those pioneer discoverers of the late Middle Ages, thanks to the mapping and charting done with endless care and accuracy, thanks to the expenditure of fortunes and lives, thanks to scientific research of centuries and to the brains of master shipbuilders, and thanks to the marvellous discoveries of Marconi and other inventors, we just step on board a ship and off we go, knowing that we are safely in touch through space with our homes and with other ships, and that we shall land thousands of miles away at the exact spot and at the exact moment that we want to 1

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Oh, yes 1 The victory of man over the element of the sea is a romance indeed.
But I didn't mean to write to you about the sea like this, because at the moment I am still telling you about our tour across Canada.
This brings to my mind yet another most romantic piece of history in the laying of the Railway Line right across this vast Continent—just a narrow ribbon as it were of steel railway line, only four feet eight inches in width, stretching its length through mile after mile of wild untouched and uninhabited land.
Fancy starting out to build a railway line three thousand miles long I
And not only did this trans-continental railway have to cover the vast expanse of fairly flat open country, but it had to cross huge rivers and deep gorges, to thread its way through tangled rocky wilds and thick impenetrable forests, to skirt great lakes like inland seas, it had to hew its way across miles of wild, hard, rocky land, and end by climbing over the range of the Rocky Mountains.
At that time, in the " eighteen-seventies," Canada was in a sort of vicious circle. There were quite a number of people living in the eastern part, where the French people had settled in Quebec Province, and many British people had got well established in the Maritime Provinces. But beyond that, out into the west, nobody could penetrate farther afield into her big open spaces to make their farms, to start their cattle herds, and to grow their food, until they had a railway to take them there, and trains by which they would be able to send away their goods.
By the same token, it was difficult to plan to make a railway to lead to areas where there were as yet no inhabitants who would wish to travel thither !
It was all rather like that problematical question about the hen and the egg—and as to which of them was there first. There could not be an egg first because there had

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to be a hen to lay it ; and there could not be a hen first, because she would naturally have to be hatched out of an egg !
It is a bit of a puzzler, isn't it ?
Well, anyhow, the problem was settled by the foresight and the determination and the indomitable courage of some leading men in Canada, who saw that from every point of view a line of communication Was essential, and they moved heaven and earth (AND their Government) to start building it.
The country needed it, but it was an enormous thing to embark upon, costing thousands of pounds and requiring such immense thought and work, so that there was a good deal of difficulty to be overcome before a start was actually made.
However, in 1881 a charter was granted to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, and at last, in 1885, the two long stretches of line that had been laid across, the one from the east and the other from the west, were joined up. It was a thrilling day indeed for all concerned, when at last the whole continent was thus crossed by the " Iron Hone " ; and not only was it a great thing for Canada, but it made a dream of many old explorers come true in creating as it did a route for the Empire, right round that way from Great Britain to India.
Yes—the building of the C.P.R. is a romantic story indeed. If you want some tales of exciting struggles, tales of thrilling interest and of the doings of brave people as well as an enthralling bit of our Empire's history, than get for yourselves and read with thorough care the history of the Making of Canada.
ALBERTA
It is very noticeable as one travels far afield how often similar names have been given to towns in different parts of the world, in spite of the founders of such towns being free to either give them names with local significance or

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to originate something attractive and nice. This probably comes from the fact that long ago the early settlers would go out from the old Mother Land of the British Isles and found new homesteads, and they would give these the names of the places they had come from in order to feel more at home.
And so we have the names like Kingston in Jamaica, East London in South Africa, Christchurch in New Zealand, Portland in America, Perth in Australia, and Edmonton and Calgary in the one province of Alberta in Canada.
The Calgary in Scotland is as different from the Calgary in Canada as the proverbial " chalk is from cheese "—the one, small, old-fashioned, lonely—the other, a big growing town of 84,uau inhabitants, an important business centre both for industries and agriculture, and with fine handsome buildings and excellent big shops. The chief hotel, for instance, has fourteen floors, and can accommodate over 400 guests—which is more than most hotels in Great Britain can do—and in this way Canada has shown a good example in building big, solid, impressive buildings ready for the future when more people will be coming there to live. Most of the many big hotels in the Dominion are owned by one or other of the two main railways, and these are certainly " Being Prepared " for when better times come round and more and yet more visitors will come to stay in their glorious country. We had a wonderful welcome once more in Calgary. We had always remembered that on our former visit twelve years ago the Rally held then had been an outstandingly successful one, and this time it was even better. In 19z3 there had been 80o Scouts and 4o Guides present. This time there were 4,zoo Scouts and 1,2.00 Guides, and an audience estimated at about 3,000 people looking on, with enthusiastic approval.
The Scouts gave most excellent displays, and a group of real live Red Indians came in from their near-by

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Native Reserve and gave some wonderful dances. They had never shown these dances outside their own campfire circle before, so that it was a great compliment that they did the performance in public in this way.
And the Guides had their share too, and did a very original display in the shape of a living Maple Leaf. A. group of about a hundred of them ran in, carrying apparently brown and green scarves round their necks held in front by each hand, and when they had placed themselves in the formation they had had arranged, they suddenly knelt down and at the same time swung their arms up over their heads so that the scarves spread out and formed cloaks over their backs, and this gave the impression of a smooth brown and green leaf-the national emblem of Canada.
Rather the same thing happened again at Winnipeg, but this was done on an even grander scale, as here there were exactly 9o3 Guides taking part, and they formed a colossal living Union Jack. This was more difficult to do, of course, owing to having to fit in all the different coloured " pieces " together in their right order. I have never seen anything so impressive as when it actually took place, for the audience did not know what was coming when the Guides just ran in in their hundreds and took up their stand at certain angles. As the whistle blew and each Guide plopped herself down on her knees, her back covered with a piece of bunting, the whole floor became a gigantic living flag, and the audience of some 4,00o people rose to its feet as one man and applauded and cheered vociferously.
I saw there also one other display that was, to me, entirely new. On the programme it was put down as " knotting," and I had thought this might possibly be rather dull, as though tying knots is essential for the Tenderfoot, and valuable and useful to all of us, it is not the sort of thing that one would call spectacular or amusing or interesting to onlookers.

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But this was an entirely new and original sort of knotting display to me. The band played some gay dance music, and into the arena came running groups of Guides in fours, each couple carrying between them two very fat ropes-one red and one white-and about five yards long. And then each four, acting in a square like in a country dance, twined themselves in and out of each other, in time with the music, and made the ropes tie themselves into huge, well-made knots-clove hitch, reef knot, sheep-shank, and sheet bend. They completed the knot, held it up so that it would be clearly seen for a short minute, and then un-made it again. Though a Winnipeg Guider will always have the pleasure of knowing that she invented and arranged it to be given at this Rally, I feel sure that she will not mind my writing about it here so that perhaps some of you may like to try to work it out and do it yourselves.
During our time in Calgary, I had the unique experience of being renamed by an Indian Chief. The Chief Scout was adopted as a member of the Sarcee Tribe some years ago, and enjoys the name of " Spotted Eagle." This time we went to call upon the Tribe in their own " Reserve " (a stretch of land allotted to them to farm and live on), and the Chief Joe Big Plume and his leading men all received us in their full regalia of feathered headdresses and beaded jackets and embroidered trousers and moccasins, their hands and faces painted in streaks with red ochre.
Seated in the middle of a circle of these braves were half a dozen menwith drums, all sitting facing inwards and leaning forward, with their heads almost touching, and as Chief Big Plume started to read a kind of address of welcome they punctuated each sentence with resounding beating of drums. This prolonged the reading of the address rather considerably, and at the end we were not quite sure what was to happen next. A beaded mat was suddenly produced and laid on the ground at my feet, and

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I was then made to kneel down in front of our grand friend, and, placing his hand on the top of my Guide hat, he made a long incantation in his own Sarcee dialect and named me " Otter Woman "—an honorary squaw of the Tribe
The whole lot of leading men, their squaws, and several of the Guiders and Scouters who had come with us to see the fun, then indulged in a frenzied dance, cavorting round the " band," partly to warm themselves up in the biting wind, and partly because it was evidently expected of us to show some sign of life and some visible appreciation of the honour done to me.
The Chief Scout now, when surprised or astonished at any of the Chief Guide's actions, exclaims with vigour : " Well, I never ! WH-OTTER WOMAN 1 "
SASKATCHEWAN
Hurry, hurry—Guides, Guides—rush, rush—pack, pack—bustle, bustle—Rally, Rally—and so we go on our tour, seeing and being seen by Scouts and Guides in all the many chief big towns of Canada.
Edmonton had its delightful Rally, and then we cross the border into the " Prairie Province " of Saskatchewan, where drought and dust storms, failure of crops, falling prices, and depression have stalked through the land, leaving a trail of poverty and haunting anxiety for the farmer, and distress and sadness for all who are dependent for their living on the price of wheat and all the products of the soil.
You may have heard about the terrible dust storms sweeping over the country, and how the earth, made thin from successive annual production of heavy crops of wheat, is swept up into the air and blown for miles across the country.
All day long a farmer may work and plough and plant his seed, and next day he sees the entire surface of the field lifted sky high and carried away into the distance.

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The air becomes so thick you cannot see, and the light earth piles itself up in deep drifts against the houses, or by the roadside banks.
I hardly believed it possible, but seeing is believing, and I drove for forty miles through a dust storm on my way from Regina to Moose Jaw to see the Guides there.
The air was so thick with dust that we had to put on the lights of the car, and my clothes and face were thick with a layer of dust even though we travelled with all the windows tight shut.
It just penetrates through everything, getting into your eyes and noses and throats ; it is most unpleasant to the taste, and the dryness of it seems to shrivel up the skin and make it rough and hard.
Here, more perhaps than anywhere in the world, are courage and fortitude wanted in the make-up of the men and women living in such surroundings—yes, and in the make-up of the children too.
And here indeed were we proud to realise that the Scouts and Guides have not been found wanting, how they have struggled against odds to join the Movement, how they have worked and won through in their efforts to keep their Companies going, and indeed the Guiders and the Guides of this enormous province of Canada are an example to us and a proof again of that good old saying that " where there's a will there's a way.
Not content with keeping the flag flying through years and months of difficulties they decided in their hundreds to join in with the Rallies, and started saving up for the purpose.
The day came, and with it came a rain storm which gradually developed into a blinding snow storm with a raging biting gale.
I went down to the Guide Office, and everywhere people were scurrying about in mackintoshes and snow boots.
But all were smiling and beaming, and apparently not minding this truly ghastly weather at all.

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And then I found that there was reason for this gaiety, for this " month of May " snow had in all probability just come in the nick of time to lie and melt on the dusty land, and it would then be the means of saving the wheat crop, from being blown away " into the blue."
And through this mud and slosh and wind and snow of a bitter day the Guides and Scouts came journeying into the town in their hundreds, some in special trains from zoo hundred miles away, some in cars from thirty or forty or fifty miles away, whilst others journeyed through the night in open lorries—some two thousand of them—in order to be there with their friends to meet the Chief.
The vivid memory of the enthusiasm and the gallant spirit of those Scouts and Guides will always stay in my mind, and it was fine to see them so plucky, so strong, and so determined not to be left out.
But what of the Scoutmasters and Captains who had all the bother and the work and the anxiety of arranging the outing, and of convoying their Companies from far and near ?
Have you ever thought of that, you Guides ? Do you realise what you owe to your Guiders who give to you of their time, their talents, their thought, their work, their example, their unstinted efforts, and their unceasing care ?
Of course your Guiders enjoy seeing a big Rally, they gain a new enthusiasm when they see that others, like themselves, are playing the same game ; and they take courage too from realising that we are a big combine and that each one of us can make a success of our own special bit of the Guide game if we try.
They probably enjoy the outing as much as you do, and are pleased to be there and proud of taking you along to show what a fine lot of Guides you are—rather like a mother hen showing off her fine brood of chickens.
(In some cases perhaps you may look on yourselves as

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a fine brood of " ugly ducklings "—but THAT is a matter of opinion 1 1)
But have you thought about those " in between time " months during the rest of the year when there is no Rally in preparation, no jolly Camp in sight, no fund-raising concert to be planned, no new bunch of Tenderfoots to be pushed through their Second Class, no District Competition to be worked up for, but just ordinary everyday Guide work is being done at your regular weekly meetings ?
Isn't your Guider just magnificent the way she goes on and on, helping you, teaching you pushing you down if you are getting obstreperous, pulling you up if you are getting backward, leading you to DO your best, encouraging you to BE your best, and urging you to take well into YOUR hands the responsibility of helping her to bear HERS as your leader ?
Running a Company or a Pack is not so easy as some people may think, and I wish that all you Guides could see your Guiders through my eyes, and that you could appreciate them and their work as fully as I do.
Your Captain may not be altogether and entirely and absolutely perfect in all ways. Who is ?
But she is working with you for your good, and if you give your work and your love and your help to other people, that is doing the most worth-while thing in the world and is perfect in itself.
So, Guides, back up your Guiders in what they are doing for you, and help them in every way you can.
ONTARIO
Unfortunately, it is simply not possible to write fully about each Rally or about each place that we visited during our tour across Canada, as we stopped off and had meetings and Rallies at twenty-two different towns. On coming to Ontario I found several different sorts of greetings awaiting me—some by post, some by telephone,

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some large, and some small—but all of them delightfully kind and friendly. The Guides of Canada certainly seemed to adopt me as their own special " Guide Mother " 1
At the tiny station of Chauplain our train halted for a few minutes in the pelting rain, and there I espied five smiling imps wearing Guide Badges. I had just time to hop out of the train for a chat with them, and found that though the rest of the Company had gone on to join in the big Rally to be held a hundred miles away, these Guides had not been able to afford the long journey. So, though it was during school hours that our train was passing, they had begged leave off lessons to come to the station to say " How do you do."
Then, in contrast to this tiny group, came the biggest gathering of our tour, when over 8,0oo Guides gathered together for a marvellous Rally in the beautiful town of Toronto—the Queen City of Canada.
This is a rather closely settled and well-populated part of Canada, and there are many large towns round the huge lake, with their full complement of Guides too. London, for instance, situated as it is on this other River Thames, had a Rally of some 5,o00 Scouts and Guides for us, and ten special trains brought in hundreds and thousands of them to the huge Rally in Toronto itself. Owing to the uncertainty of the weather it had to be held under cover, so you can imagine that the building in which it took place was a pretty good size, since besides holding the Guides and Brownies it also held numbers of their parents, who had come to see their daughters disporting themselves.
And the Boy Scouts were having their Rally in that same building on that same afternoon too, so that our " show " had to be rather hurried. We had one crowded hour of fun together, and I have never heard or seen or felt greater enthusiasm in any part of the world.
An awfully nice spectacular form of welcome was

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planned for us which was easy to arrange, inexpensive to achieve, and yet most attractive, and it is one which perhaps might be imitated elsewhere on occasions.
When the excellent displays were all over and the proceedings were coining to a close, the spectator Guides were all sitting in tier upon tier of seats all round the huge arena.
It was planned that the Chief Scout and I should walk right round it so that we could all see each other the better. At a given signal as we approached each block of seats holding about a thousand Guides they all jumped up and whisked out of their pockets short strands of coloured paper streamers, and cheered and waved these violently in the air.
One block would have green and purple ; another yellow and red ; another pink and blue ; and at the end, when the whole place was filled with gladsome voices and waving hands, it made a most colourful scene of rainbow brightness.
No sooner was our exciting show over, than all the Guides were marched out at one end of the huge building, whilst thirteen thousand Scouts came crowding in from the other. It was an immense undertaking for those who were running the show, and it was impressive seeing this invasion of the city by so many smart, happy-looking Scouts and Guides.
Another greeting came to me here, by post, and was unsigned. . . . It said : " I want to thank you two for bringing happiness into my life. There are thousands of girls like me without parents, who have no one else to thank. I had to leave school on account of sickness, and was the loneliest girl in Canada. But now things are different, as a Guide I am REALLY happy. I belong to someone, and it makes all the difference. . . ."
She does belong to someone indeed 1 She has over a million sister Guides in the world, and she need never feel lonely again.

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This fact is rather encouraging to all of us, isn't it ? It is rather lovely to realise that wherever we are, whoever we are, whatever we have got, or whatever we have not got, we HAVE all got these friends in the world sharing the game of Guiding with us, in sympathy with us, and all gladdened by this heartening feeling of kinship, through our gigantic family.
DISCOVERY OF CANADA
I have been telling you about some of our experiences in Canada, and before going farther I must tell you something about its most interesting history.
By knowing the history of a country or a town or a district—or even of a person—you can take a closer interest in it or in her !
The earliest history of the North American continent is more or less shrouded in mystery, and though there were tribes of natives living there nothing much is known about them.
They were not what you would nowadays call civilised people, and they must have had a pretty tough time of it, living only in tents made of hides, always moving like nomads from place to place according to the seasons of the year, and following the wandering herds of wild buffalo, so that they might be able to kill them for food. When, in 1492, that marvellous adventurer Christopher Columbus first landed on this continent he thought that he had got right round the world from west to east, and that he had really got as far as India ; and when he saw these people with very dark reddish faces he gave them the name " Red Indians," and the name has stuck ever since.
But now I am going to tell you something that may seem surprising. Most geography books and history books will tell you that Christopher Columbus was the first discoverer of America. He certainly is reputed to be the first man to sight the continent, down in the more

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BEING NAMED "OTTER WOMAN," AS AN HONORARY MEMBER OF THE SARCEE TRIBE.

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southern part, but the northern part had been seen already by a European.
In that thrilling book, The Historians' History of the 1 'Vorld, there is a most interesting account of this earlier discoverer, away back in 985, when King Olaf the Saint was ruling in Norway and sent out a man called Gudleif on long voyages of discovery.
Gudleif and his band of sea rovers landed in Ireland first, they then sailed on and discovered Iceland, and later penetrated yet farther and sighted Greenland with its " mountainous and rocky coasts."
The year after these first Norse settlers reached Iceland a man named Bjarni Herjulfson went out exploring into the west for Greenland once more, but he was so beset by north winds and fogs that he lost his bearings. After some days he at last sighted land, not bleak mountainous land covered with ice and snow as they expected, but lower land " without mountains and covered with wood." It is estimated that they must have sailed many miles out across this unknown sea and, judging by the distance, the direction of the wind, the appearance of the shores, and other details contained in the narratives of their adventure, there can be no doubt that the countries they discovered were Connecticut, Long Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.
These people of long ago, however, did not land, and so we skip some centuries of history and come to the fifteenth century when the people of Spain, of Italy, of Portugal, and of old Great Britain were indeed conquering the seas with large sailing ships, and when the love of adventure coupled with a certain amount of greed was driving men to go forth to find new wealth and new property for their countries or for themselves 1
After the feat of Christopher Columbus, and when the news of the discovery of land across the Atlantic Ocean was spread in Italy, yet another person with the mind and ambitions of an explorer sat up and took notice.

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His name was John Cabot. In 1496 he and his sons travelled over from Venice to Bristol, which was then England's great port, and after much wangling and making urgent demands, he got permission from King Henry VII to " seek out, discover, and find whatsoever islands, countries, regions, or provinces wheresoever they may be " ; and they were then to set up the banner of the King and claim for him any of this land and to give him a fifth part of any profitable things they found.
King Henry seems to have been rather a greedy sort of man In May 1497, therefore, John Cabot left Bristol in a little fifty-ton ship called the Matthnre, with a crew of eighteen specially selected men ; and on June z4th they at last sighted land which was the cape we now know as Cape Breton in Nova Scotia.
On landing he set up a cross and the flag of England, and claimed the country for King Henry VII, and forthwith sailed back to England again with the news of what he had seen and done.
The next Englishman to think of developing English territory across the sea was Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a daring sailor, and half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh. He thought that he would like to be the founder of Britain's first colony, so he got permission from Queen Elizabeth to go off on this long journey. She granted to him all the land that had been discovered by John Cabot, but reserved for herself all the minerals that were found there.
So, on June I rth, 1583, Sir Humphrey sailed off with a number of men in three large ships, carrying provisions for the long journey and for settling down on the land that they hoped to find.
On their way across a storm came up and did terrible damage to the little fleet. Sir Humphrey himself was on the smaller ship, the Squirrel. The sailors on the Golden Hind, which was a larger, stronger vessel, wanted him to come on board her for safety, but he refused, and the last they saw of him when the vessels came close together was

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sitting aloft with a book in his hand and he called out to them : " Be brave, my friends ; we are as near Heaven by sea as by land." And that same night they saw the Squirrel disappear into a trough of a big wave, and he was never seen again.
The rest of the exploring party continued their voyage and landed again at Cape Breton, where John Cabot had first set foot on Canadian soil.
THE FRENCH LANDING IN CANADA
France also produced some wonderful explorers in this same period in history, and in 1534 the King of France said to one named Jacques Cartier, " I want you to cross the sea and visit this strange new country I have heard so much about."
He meant Canada, but of course it had not been named then, and nobody knew anything about the interior.
So Jacques Cartier sailed across the sea and landed on the coast of Gaspey Bay, in Nova Scotia, and there he set up a wooden cross, as high as a house, with the French lilies carved on the top, and the words " Long live the King of France."
In this way he was claiming the land for his own home country, France, and John Cabot had claimed it for England some thirty-seven years before. This was all rather awkward, and from then onwards there were to be long periods of unhappy fighting between the French and the English, before it was finally settled who the country should belong to.
The French lived in Quebec, and felt it belonged to them, although the English had penetrated inland and felt that the country belonged to Great Britain.
Finally definite war broke out, armed troops arrived from both countries to support their adventurous colonists, and the fate of this vast unexplored and unknown continent was in the balance. There was bitter fighting, and many lives were lost.

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Eventually the two famous generals, Wolfe for England and Montcalm for France, came to a climax against each other after the English troops had done the memorable climb up the Heights of Abraham, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
By doing this they took the French troops in Quebec City by surprise, and after a furious battle the English won the day.
But even so the day was a sad one for both victors and vanquished, as both the generals were killed within a few minutes of each other, dying like heroes in the fulfilment of their duty.
OTTAWA
When travelling in Europe you get quite accustomed to stepping over frontiers from one country into another, and to hearing the different languages being used on either side of the geographical dividing line between nations. But it is quite odd to do that in a British Dominion, and on your arrival in the capital city of Ottawa you suddenly realise that though Canada flies the Union Jack, owes loving allegiance to the King, and is a loyal jewel in the Empire's crown, she has, living in her cities and over the countryside, thousands of people drawn from many nationalities, who came here from European countries to work, to settle, to do and to dare, and to strive to make a living even if they fail to make a fortune. Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Finns, Swedes, Norwegians, Hungarians, Germans, Swiss, Italians, and Greeks, are all there in their numbers, some keeping up the age-old customs of their motherland, the older folk usually sticking still to their own language, whilst the boys and girls, coming as they do into the Scouts and Guides, become Canadianised as time goes on ; and in the melting pot of school, of the playground, and of contact with others of their own age, they are being welded into a Canadian nation.

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And in Ottawa too you suddenly realise more deeply the romance of the history of Canada, the early struggles and troubles between the French and the British, who each felt they had an equal right to possess this new domain. Out of the ten million people living in Canada three million are French " Canadien," not owing allegiance to France at all, but a race of themselves, French in spirit and language, but completely wedded to their adopted country and devotedly Canadian in heart.
As you walk about the streets in Montreal you hear French spoken as much as English, the roads are called " Boulevards " and the shop names are largely French. Some two thousand Guides mustered here for another wonderful Rally, and put on as fine a show as I have ever seen anywhere. There was the loveliest Camp Fire, with delightful singing of rounds by hundreds of happy people ; and there was an extremely good arrangement of a display of Badge work.
It is so important at Rallies, that you Guides should show the onlookers some of the useful good things that we do, and yet it is difficult to make these things very interesting to the average spectator.
There isn't anything really exciting, for instance, about making a bed ; doing First Aid cannot be exactly spectacular ; and you can't do anything sensational in depicting work for the Laundress Badge with a small tub of water and a bit of soap
But Montreal solved the problem, and other people can take a leaf from their books. On a large piece of white sheeting about five yards in diameter, a large diagram of a Laundress Badge had been drawn; this was placed on the ground in the arena, and then about thirty Guides, with aprons on and sleeves rolled up, danced in with pails and soaps and pegs and clothes lines. They formed up in a circle facing outwards, all round the edge of the badge spread upon the ground, and then they all got busy each in their own way. Some put up a clothes line all round

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it, some hung up the clothes to dry, whilst others turned to and did scrubbing in the wash tubs, and the rest did vigorous ironing on an ironing board.
In this way, as the girls were well spread out, facing in all directions round the outside edge of the pictured Badge, it was quite easy for everyone to see and fully understand all that was going on. At the same time a gardening display took place. The Gardener's Badge was laid upon the ground and Guides again came dancing in to music. Dressed in smocks and green baize aprons, armed with forks, spades, trowels, and trugs, and all gardening equipment, it made a very effective show, and they in their turn dug and delved, watered and planted, mowed and sowed in realistic fashion so that all might see and understand about the Gardener's Badge and the delights of learning how to obtain it.
Montreal is the most lovely city. It spreads its suburbs out into the quiet of lovely woods ; old buildings are there to remind one of its earlier history ; fine new handsome buildings are there to remind one of its prosperous development of later years ; it reaches out across the width of the magnificent St. Lawrence River, and it stretches its hands out to hold on to the hillside of the beautiful Mount Royal after which it takes its name. Some people might like to call Montreal the Front Door of this eastern end of Canada, for into her wharves come the biggest ocean-going liners, and boats filled with cargo of all kinds. But of course there are other ports also—the Side Doors as you might say—the Garden. Door, the Tradesmen's Entrance, and even the Emergency Exit I
During the summer months the ships may come and go as they will, along the full length of the huge Gulf of St. Lawrence ; but in the winter the ice blocks it all up, and ships can only reach the smaller harbours of the Maritime Provinces, farther down and round the coast.
We visited and had such happy times at three of these

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—Saint John, Pfaff., and Sydney—and at all of these also Scouting and Guiding are going ahead with vigour and a fine spirit of keenness and plucky endeavour.
QUEBEC
Long ago, when I was very young and rather self-conscious, I could not bear to show that I did not understand them when people used long words or phrases that were beyond my comprehension. I felt uncomfortably sure that people would think less of me, or count me as a stupid ignoramus ; and I therefore refrained from asking questions and getting information which would have been useful to me.
Now I know how wrong I was, for, of course, nobody minded my being stupid I It did not matter to them. In fact people don't really notice if you are not clever, though they spot it soon enough if you are spiteful and unkind or sarcastic in what you say. There is something wrong and to be ashamed of in being sharp-tongued and nasty, but there is no harm at all in being stupid ; and nobody need ever be ashamed of showing their ignorance of topics that are outside their usual sphere.
In fact as often as not you will find that people who are very clever at some special subject, such as art or sport, rather like " talking shop " and airing their views and opinions. They are glad of the opportunity of explaining them to ready listeners. So if any of you suffer—as I did—from that sort of hesitancy and shyness about asking questions, just put it on one side altogether ; and if somebody is talking over your head, just ask them to come down to your level for a bit, and learn from them all that you can concerning the things they know about best.
You may very easily guess that people expect me to talk a good deal about Guides, as all of you who constitute our beloved Movement are rather naturally vividly in my mind and dearest and nearest to my heart. Travel

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—with a capital T—is the subject that comes next perhaps in my horizon.
And now I must take you down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec. This time Heather and Betty did the 18o-mile journey by road ; the Chief Scout and I did it by rail, but some years ago we did it by boat, and I think that way is the nicest of all.
In the long, cold winter months, this immense river is, of course, covered with its thick coat of ice, so hard that you can drive about on it in cars and sleighs. And then in the early summer, when the great thaw begins, the ice-breaking ships come along with their strong steel noses and split the great sheets of ice, and smash and push and shove and crash into the gigantic blocks. The river swells enormously with the mass of melting snow flowing down from the hills, and this surging, muddy torrent sends the broken ice floes hurtling out to the open sea. By June the river is placid and smooth and clear again, and so deep that it can carry even the huge zo,000-ton Duchess boats, belonging to the C.P.R., right up to the Montreal docks.
Just above the quaint old city of Quebec, a huge long suspension bridge spans this wide water-way. So high is it that at low tide the towering masts of the biggest ships can go under it, with some two or three feet to spare. It must be a tricky business for the Captains of these ships, as they come sweeping down-stream on the flowing tide, making sure that the stream is at its lowest, and steering skilfully through the centre arch where the bridge is at its highest.
Oddly enough, if you stand on the deck or a ship when going under a bridge, it always looks as if the top of the mast is bound to bump. It is a sort of optical delusion as you look up into the sky, along the full length of the mast itself.
A delightful story is told of two old ladies travelling on this same voyage down the St. Lawrence River, and near-

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ing the deceptive-looking bridge. The one, with her heart in her mouth, exclaimed with alarm that she was sure there would be a crash, and the other replied (in her wisdom AND in her ignorance !) " It is all right, my dear, the masts won't touch the bridge, as the Captain will dip the ship "
Guiding in Quebec is not easy. Is it EASY anywhere ? Sometimes bits of our work may seem easy to some, and a great deal of the game we are playing is fun and joy and happiness to us. But there are always difficult bits to be found, and these are the pepper and salt of the game, that give it its flavour.
Difficulties are there to test our steel, and if we can overcome them, then we can prove our power, and be all the more ready to face up to new ones if and when they loom ahead of us.
Someone told me lately that nowadays girls in some places prefer to amuse themselves at clubs and cinemas rather than tackle the WORK there is in Guiding. Well, they may get more amusement out of other things ; they may have a good time and enjoy themselves ; but they don't gain that indescribable something that we Guides have got within our ranks—that extra bit of happiness that comes as a reward and a crown to our efforts and our achievements.
You people who have had to struggle a bit for your Tenderfoot, and have had to work hard for your Second Class ; those of you who have had to deny yourselves for the sake of buying your uniform, and give up something else in order to help a fellow-Guide—You have found something you cannot see. You have shown what good stuff you are made of ; you have proved that you have grit and courage ; and you have GAINED a new strength of character which can snake you face the world fearlessly in the future. " Where there's a will there's a way " ; and most difficulties can be overcome if we try hard enough and long enough.

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So perhaps the branch of our sisterhood in Quebec can lke courage in both its hands, and feel that the present Acuities in their path, and the problems of race, religion, Inguage, and custom, are there to try them out.
There are various separate groups of Guides in the ifferent sections of the community, but I hope that, hrough being GOOD Guides in every sense of the term, hey will develop a kind and tolerant good feeling to-cards each other.
There are the English-speaking Roman Catholic Guides odor their leaders ; there are the French-speaking Guides
^elonging to the Franciscan Sisters at their own Convent ; here are the " English-Canadian " Protestant girls in nother lot of Companies ; and somewhere there are also ome " French-Canadian " girls being formed into Comanies. So if all these separate groups come together as ister Guides, sharing the same activities, and carrying ,ut the same Laws, they will become good comrades for 2anada together, and they will help to spread a friendly pirit amongst those around them, who, even now, have ;ot unnecessarily conflicting views and influences to keep hem apart.
NEW BRUNSWICK
From Quebec our journey took us on into New Brunswick, where much of the early history of Canada was written, history that is full of interest but sad in many ways too. It is grievous that most of the history of all the many countries of the whole world is so filled with tales of wars and hardships, and of the hatreds of one people for another.
All through the ages this has been the case, from the earliest days when prehistoric men joined in bands together to defend themselves against their enemies, or to seize their neighbour's goods or land, right down to the present day, when, to our shame, civilised peoples still
bear    to their fellow humans in near-by countries.

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In the beginning of time, and even in the Middle Ages, there was perhaps some excuse for fighting, for it was a case of defending yourself, or of being killed or beaten and all your people with you. Nowadays, since the foundation of the League of Nations, there is no excuse whatever.
In 1763, when France and England had signed their Peace Treaty of Paris, agreeing that Canada should become part of the British Empire, there was considerable trouble with the Red Indians, and there were murders and many most unhappy conflicts between the native Redskin and the conquering white race.
But there was an even more ominous affair brewing at that time, which unwittingly changed the whole of the future history of North America. Quite a number of the settlers who had gone from the Old Country to start their homes in the newly founded British Colony across the sea had been disturbed by so much turmoil between the French and the English, and they had drifted down the coast into the places which are now called Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island. They found these parts more to their liking as being good land for farming, a more genial climate, and well suited to their requirements.
They got rather irritated by various laws that were made in Canada which did not suit them, and whilst they were feeling in this way, the Government at home in Britain also passed some Acts of Parliament which they did not like at all, involving the payment of taxes.
These taxes were really levied to pay for the expenses of the war that had gained Canada for the British, but this was not understood fully ; and one day these people decided that they just would not pay them. At this moment a ship came into Boston harbour, carrying tea on which these " Colonists " refused to pay the tax. They were so cross about it that, like a lot of naughty children, they disguised themselves and went on board

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the ship and threw the chests of tea into the water. This episode is usually referred to as " The Boston Tea Party I "
It wasn't exactly OUR sort of present-day tea party, and it sounds rather a silly thing to have done, and you would not think that it could be such an important event in history. But actually just that little incident was the turning point which started those very people of British stock becoming a separate nation, and it caused a distressful war between people of the same flesh and blood. The dissatisfied ones decided that they would no longer be under British rule, but would become a new nation living alongside their neighbours in other parts of this newly developing country, and govern themselves as " United States."
I must not bore you with long tales of the various vicissitudes through which the people of Canada passed during those troublous times. But there is one person in this bit of Canada's history that I would like you to know about, and that is a young woman called Laura Secord. All Guides in Canada will, of course, know what she did, but I don't think it is fully known on our side of the Atlantic.
At a place called Beaver Dams, a Colonel Fitzgibbon was stationed with some Canadian soldiers awaiting the attack of the United States regiments. Two of the officers of this attacking army came into the Secords' home, to ask for some food, and whilst eating it they discussed their arrangements for capturing the Canadian forces. When they were gone Laura Secord said to her husband that at all costs the Canadians must be warned of these plans, and that as he could not go (owing to having been wounded in battle) she would herself go and carry the news instead.
She knew what danger she ran, but was determined to carry out her secret plan to pass through the enemy's lines and warn her own people. So she walked out, carrying her milking stool and a pail, and drove her cow alOng in

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front of her right up to where the attacking soldiers were lying. She was really driving it along, but made it appear to the sentry that she was trying to overtake it and drive it back.
" It is a contrary creature," she said, as she passed the waiting man, and he suspected nothing and let her go by. Once past him she drove the cow on till she was out of sight, then milked it, hid the pail, and hurried on her way. .She had to go a long way round for fear of falling into the hands of more of the enemy, and as she hastened through the thick forest she was often alarmed by the noise of wolves, and at any moment she feared she might come into the hands of the Indians. She struggled on, hour after hour, and then on coming out into a clearing, she found herself right in the midst of the Indians she feared.
The Chief came up to her threateningly, but she put all thought of fear aside, and made signs and tried her best to make him understand. She knew that the Indians called the soldiers " Big Knives," so she pointed to the knife at his belt, and made signs to show that there were many " Big Knives " coming, and that she must go on on her mission.
At last the Big Chief said " Ugh "—meaning that he understood—and then escorted her another mile or two to where Colonel Fitzgibbon was encamped.
Thanks to her coming and giving him warning he was able to be prepared for the attack from the enemy the next day, and thus, by her forethought, courage, and power of endurance, this brave heroine saved the lives of many of her own people.
It is this very self-same pluck and determination in the men and women of Canada that has made that country what it is. Thinking of New Brunswick in particular, it is impressive indeed to see what has been done in the short space of a hundred years by the pioneers in an untouched land.

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Where before were miles and miles of primmval forests, the trees have been felled and cleared away, and there are now beautiful stretches of profitable arable land, huge wide meadows filled with grazing cattle, sparkling rivers run through lush green pastures, and every few miles you may come upon comfortable homesteads and large farmhouses, well-built cow byres, and carefully tended vegetable patches. Well-to-do townships have sprung up ; and though many miles apart these are connected by telephone ; the railway runs across and along to connect up all who will, and though roads may become impassable at certain times of the year, the car has supplanted the horse, and the motor-bus penetrates into the wildest country districts.
There are, of course, mile upon mile of the wild part left, with wild animals roaming at will. Moose and deer, wolves and wild cats, beaver and chipmunk, and game of all kinds are to be found in abundance. It is a very very lovely part of Canada, and the people there have perhaps gained a specially kindly outlook from their surroundings, and from the tradition left to them by their forbears. I was struck anew by the friendly welcome that was accorded to us by our new-found friends in the Guide circle of the New Brunswick Province, and I shall never forget the delightful Rally that was held for us in their capital, St. John.
For a change, we endured some of " The Chief Scout's weather," and it poured and pelted with teeming rain for hours before the Rally was to be held. Nothing daunted, the Scouts and Guides assembled in their hundreds on a soaking ground, and just as the Rally was about to begin an aeroplane circled overhead and dropped a bunch of flowers and a welcoming message plump at my feet.
NOVA SCOTIA AND PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, our ex-Prime Minister, must be a very clever man, and must know a great deal, so when

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he says a thing it carries considerable weight. When he visited Canada in 1933 he said : " I have found in Nova Scotia the Land of Heart's Desire. As one who loves all its varied attractions, the tang of the sea, cool breezes, beauty of countryside, grandeur of scenery, verdant forests, quaint villages, and with it all perfect quiet . . ." Well, and if THAT isn't praise enough to turn a Province's head I don't know what is.
The only thing wrong about that description from my own experience was this matter of the " perfect quiet." That bit didn't come into MY programme quite. During our short stay in Halifax we had a grand time, including a nice meeting for Guiders, a delightful tea party for the members of the Guides Local Association, a big lunch party for people who ought to be connected with Guiding, and also a quite splendid Rally of over I,000 Scouts and Guides, as smart as any I have seen, keen, enthusiastic, many of them travelling in from outlying parts of the Province in order to share in the great occasion.
It WAS good.
The last few days of our tour through Canada were spent in the unique and charming surroundings of Prince Edward Island. Snuggled into a curve of the coast-line slanting up from Nova Scotia into the Gulf of St. Lawrence lies this smallest gem in Canada's crown.
You ferry across from the wilder country of the mainland, and find yourself in less than an hour dumped suddenly, as if from a magic carpet, into an exquisite bit of English scenery—right in the midst of lush meadows, surrounded by tidy hedges, small fields of roots, and strips of well-kept ploughed land, neat old-world villages and comfy cottages nestling in the arms of blossom-filled orchards ; and the earth that this island is made of is the same red, red soil of old Devon itself. It is most uncanny to feel yourself so entirely in England in Canada I There was much to see and much to do during our all

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too short stay in this entrancing place. One of the most interesting things was a Silver Fox Farm. This is the place that gives the main supply of fox furs to the world, and thousands of pelts are exported annually from these many farms where the foxes are bred and kept most carefully.
The one I visited had in it 1,534 young " pups." Although in England we call baby foxes " cubs," here they are firmly called " pups." There were also Soo pairs of older ones for breeding from, and these are kept in nice big wire cages, like a good poultry-run, each has its own hutch, where the animal can hide and sleep, and they can run about, and dig holes in the ground and dodge behind trees and pretend they are in their wild state. The younger ones are kept in very long houses, like first-class hen-houses, standing up on posts so that they shall be quite dry. They have nice little boxes in which to hide, plenty of straw for their bedding, and their food is of the very best.
Their two chief meals of the day are as often as not made up of meat, oatmeal, a sort of dog biscuit, eggs, and cod-liver oil, all cooked up together into a most appetising-looking mess ; and this is given them in big dollops, through narrow-mesh wire-netting, so that they do not take it all down in one gulp. They lick it through the wire, getting small bits of the food at a time, and thus don't over-stuff themselves and get indigestion !
There would be about four of these beautiful furry pups in each cage, cavorting about, rolling over and playing with each other, and they certainly lead a most comfortable life, being watched most carefully, and tended and nursed if they are ill.
Personally I was very relieved to see how well these animals were treated, and it is such a comfort to feel that, though in the end the poor wee beastie has to be killed so that his skin may be worn by a person, whilst he lives he has a rattling good time of it 1 These foxes are painlessly

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PARADE OF GUIDE COLOURS AT A RALLY AT LONDON, ONTARIO.

A BEAVER DAM.

CANADA

MURAL BRONZE PLAQUE 10 ON CONFERENCE CHAMBER, CHARLOTTETOWN.

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destroyed when the time comes, and the industry is helping to give a good supply of furs to the world market, and will help in no small measure to prevent the wild animals out in the forest from being trapped and killed as they have been in the past.
Guiding is fairly young in this, the tenth Province of Canada, but though a tender plant as yet, it promises to grow into a sturdy tree in time. The Guides have a great tradition to live up to in their island home, for it is known as " The Cradle of Confederation."
It was here in Charlottetown, the Capital of the Island, that the leading statesmen met in 5864 to discuss the first step towards joining all the Provinces of Canada into a united Dominion. Until then, each Province had stood alone, with no guiding administration from above, and this meeting was the preliminary to the passing of the " British North America Act " which allows for each Province to manage its own special internal affairs, but leaves the Dominion Government to deal with the larger matters affecting the whole country, such as the post, customs, transport, defence, legislation, foreign policy, and so on.
Quite a small room in the Charlottetown Government Buildings is the place where this momentous meeting took place, and an interesting plaque has been put up in commemoration of the scene. The names of the delegates appear in the margin, the Arms of England rest on the Union Jack just above the Arms of Canada, and trees are shown in the centre, representing the large oak of England, and alongside it the small tree of the Colony, implying " the small under the shadow of the great." Portraits of the different leading statesmen of the time are included on this unique memorial, each holding in his hand something representing the Province he served —a pick-axe for the mining areas, a fish from the rivers, wheat from the plains. A scroll is held by one, on which is written " Thy Dominion shall extend from sea to sea,

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and unto the river's end "—meaning that this new-born Dominion stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the St. Lawrence in the south to the mouth of the Mackenzie River in the north.
The British North America Act came into force on July 1st, 1867, and after that date Britain gave up all control of Canadian affairs and left that great country to keep its own house in order. The tie that binds it to the motherland is stronger far than that of laws and governments, for it is the tie of affection, of kinship, of gratitude and admiration.
And the latter is the background to all that I have felt during this tour. One is filled with admiration for the Canadian pioneers long past, who spent their lives in making a country for their descendants to possess, and one is equally inspired by the magnificent pluck and spirit of the present-day young Canadian.
As I have remarked before, " comparisons are odious," and I draw none between Guides of one country and another. We all of us are trying our best to become good loyal citizens for the country in which we live, and I have little doubt that the Guides of Canada are going to be the high-flyers in the service of their beloved Dominion —courageous and true, worthy of the heritage handed down to them by their forefathers of the centuries that are past.

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CHAPTER FIVE
NEWFOUNDLAND
SOME years ago when on board ship returning to England from Canada, I saw just a vague outline of Newfoundland in the dim grey distance. A wireless message came to us then from the Scouts and Guides, wishing us " bon voyage," and also wishing that we could have paid a call upon them on our way past their shores. At last we have been able to do this, and it has been a delight to us to meet them all, and to get to know more about them and their doings and their surroundings.
You know, of course, whereabouts Newfoundland is on the map, and it may seem strange to you that, as the island is so near to Canada, it should not be counted as part of it. But the people of this Colony live in a world of their own ; they have an interesting history ; their life is, in many ways, different from life anywhere else in the world, and they have a strong love for their island home, and take a pride in it and in their possessions.
Oddly enough, too, Newfoundland owns an enormous tract of wild forest land on the mainland, as Labrador (on the coast across the Straits of Bell Isle) belongs to them. In fact their child across the water is much larger in acreage than is the parent country itself.
Newfoundland is our oldest Colony, and was first visited in 1497, when John Cabot came across from England in search of a sea route to India. He had already landed in Canada, and then later, when he found this lonely island he quietly took possession of it by landing and hoisting the British flag. He then returned to England, making this crossing of the Northern Atlantic in forty-three days, which was considered a marvellous achievement.
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His return home and the stories he told of his experiences excited the fishermen and navigators of Europe ; and very soon several more English, as well as French, Portuguese, and Spanish, expeditions set sail for this newfound land. So though the country was first peopled by sailors and fishermen from Great Britain, some of these other foreign seafarers came over there and stayed, and gave their names to the bays and capes, to the rivers and hill-tops, and to the tiny settlements that sprang up when, in the later sixteenth century, the sailors brought over their women folk and made their homes there.
Some of these names are unique and quaint, and are no doubt handed down to us as reminders of woeful and strange happenings to those early pioneers. Though what is now known as Cape Despair may probably have started as Cap D'Espoir (Cape Hope) there are others, such as Confusion Bay, Seldom Come Cove, Dead Man's Harbour, Misery Point, Random Sound, and Famish Gut, that tell their own tale of the trials and tribulations of those who set out to conquer this wild and untouched country.
In contrast to these that strike a note of tragedy are many delightful and charming names, such as Fortune Bay, Flowers Cove, and Paradise Sound, whilst tiny hamlets rejoice in such names as Heart's Content, Butter Pot, Maintopsail, Bonaventure, Rose Blanche, and Come-by-Chance.
The Colony is almost the same size as England, and rather a similar sort of shape, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, and, owing to the indentations on the coast, the wide rivers, and many immense lakes, it is said that one-fifth of the face of the land is really not land but water 1 Here and there the arms of the sea stretch inland some thirty or forty miles, and the coast-line itself is said to be some four thousand miles in extent, as it curves in and out in a jagged outline.
And most of it is just bare grey rock, with high cliffs,

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unsheltered and bleak, and absolutely untouched and unapproachable. Of course, during the short weeks of midsummer, it can all look warm and welcoming, but for the larger part of the year the ice is thick around the shores, and only the two harbours of St. John's and Porteaux-Basques are kept open by the ice-breakers thrusting their way through to bring provisions and mails to these isolated people.
On the land itself there is but one railway, which goes across the southern end of the island, and there is no network of roads across or along the island, as there is no need for them. The population is very small (265,o00 to be exact), and the inhabitants of the towns stay in the towns for their work, excepting for their holidays, when they may go off into the woods tramping and camping and fishing. But the people who live in the tiny villages far away from anywhere are so isolated and so poor, that they can never go away, and wouldn't know where to go if they could.
Life is very rough and very hard for these people who live in these lonely places. The women just look after their children and their little homes, and the men work tremendously hard at cutting down timber for selling to the mills for making paper. Inland this is the chief industry, and all along the entire stretch of railway line you see thousands and thousands of logs, all sawn to even lengths, piled up in huge stacks, at the halting-places.
I can't call these " stations " exactly, because, as often as not, though the stopping-place may have a large name board standing up, it may probably have only a shed and a platform to keep it company ; or it may even have nothing at all, but just a short bit of double-line track and a signal post. Mostly the inhabitants of these lonely inland areas will be scattered in tiny log huts, miles from one another, separated by about seven miles or so of dense forest ; but here and there will be a hamlet

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of some four or five tiny cottages clustering together like chickens round a hen, where the people have cleared away the thick trees and have started to plough the land and grow some food for themselves and for their few animals.
RoBmsoN's
We were lucky enough to stay for a while at one of these small places. It was called Robinson's, and our railway coach in which we were snugly housed was parked in the tiny siding, and we grew to love the place. There was the wee station itself, managed by a splendid man, who acted as station master, ticket collector, clerk, porter, goods checker, telegraphist, cashier, signalman, and telephone operator, all rolled into one. There were four other cottages grouped round this wayside station, a few woodsheds, and a tiny store, where you could buy rope, tobacco, nails, shirts, bacon and boots, saucepans and socks, fishing nets and flour, cheese and chocolate, and all manner of such-like necessaries.
And in this little nest of houses lived some of the kindliest people I have ever met, the gangers and their mates, the woodcutters, the farmers and fishermen, and their families both great and small. They welcomed us as friends as we landed into their small isolated community, the men in the woods with their rough greeting, the women at their cottage doors, and the children running round us in circles-specially when chocolate slabs were seen in the offing 1
Out of these, only one couple had ever been to a town ; no one else had ever seen a car or a shop, a street or a lamp-post, and gramophones, wireless, and electric light were things unknown.
All through the summer months these thrifty people are preparing for the long dreary winter months, when the world around them lies feet deep in snow. The

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fishing season brings its store of fish, which is laid out and dried in the summer sun, and then stored, all dry and hard, in holes dug in the ground for the purpose. The hot June sun blazing on to the soil, soaked like a sponge with fertilising snow, brings a quick harvest for a rapid sowing ; the cattle and sheep are turned loose, to wander unseen for weeks at a time, feeding themselves and waxing fat on the grass that springs up quickly where the trees are cut each year in the forest. And there is always the task of cutting and stacking the good supply of wood for the winter fuel.
In a good season the salmon run brings a profitable return of money for the hard work that is given in catching them, and we saw many cases of these fine big fish, safely packed in ice, being despatched to Canada, to New York, and even direct to England. The ice for this purpose is hacked out of the rivers in the early spring and stored in deep holes till wanted.
There is much to be done by all hands during the summer, for " there's little to earn and many to keep," and there are no half-holidays or off-times for these hard-working people in their struggle to make both ends meet. And when winter comes there is hard work for the men in the lumber camps, in clearing the snow from the railway line, and in caring for the animals that are brought in again from the wilds and kept for months on end in the primitive dark sheds and byres.
And the women's life is a hard one, too, where there are anxieties to be faced with the young babies and children around you, where the shortest of supplies must be made to go the longest way possible, where there are no doctors or nurses handy for cases of illness ; where your days are so short and your nights are so long, where your loneliness may seem overwhelming, and where you are cut off and out of touch with other human beings for weeks on end.
On the other hand, perhaps in some ways, we of the

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over-civilised parts of the world may find it in our hearts to envy these people who live simply and quietly, year by year, with the vivid beauties and the awesome wonders of nature around them, " far from the madding crowd " and untouched by the misery of crowded cities, the cruel grind of noisy factories, the whirling headlong rushing of planes and trains filled with teeming millions of people tearing madly from place to place, and the jarring clamour of machine-made noise.
Perhaps, with their brave stoical outlook, these people lead a life that is in the end as happy and as satisfactory as our own, and their high courage, their fortitude, and their spartan power of endurance are an example to us, and deserve our unbounded admiration.
When sun-rays crown thy pinc-clad hills, And summer spreads her hand, Whcn silvcm voices tune thy rills, Wc love thee, smiling land I
" As loved our fathers, to we love,
Where once they stood we stand ;
Their prayer we mi. to Hcav'n above :
God guard thee, Newfoundland I "
SIR CAVENDISH BOYLE (ex-Governor of Neufoundland).
OUTPORTS
When I learned about this Colony in geography lessons very many years ago I used to call it NewFouNDI'nd with the accent on the middle syllable. But to be correct you must pronounce it NewrndLaND, for it hurts people there to hear their name mispronounced, just as it somehow annoys anybody to have their own personal name pronounced or spelt wrong.
Katherines, for instance, hate being written to as Catherine ; Hewats don't at all like being called Hewitt ; there is Anne, who feels quite different from Ann ; and even our name is rather a puzzler to some people who have not come across it at close quarters. Sometimes

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people will speak of us as if we were " Barden-Powell," with the Powell pronounced as if it rhymed with towel—which it doesn't. Not long ago one lady, in exasperation, asked me to explain how we DO pronounce it, and the best explanation seemed to be that it is spoken as if it were spelt " Bayden-Po-ell."
By the way, I wonder whether you know that nice story of the seaman who, when making a list of requirements for his boss, wrote down that he wanted so many tools, so much rope, and also some wooden blox.
" But," said the officer, " B-L-0-X is not the way to spell ' blocks '."
" And if B-L-o-x don't spell blocks, what Do it spell ? " came the unanswerable reply.
But to come back to Newf'ndland.
I have told you about our wild and woodsy holiday place, Robinson's, which is, of course, quite accessible through having the railway line passing by. Excepting, therefore, for the possibility of blizzards and snow storms in the winter, it is never cut off completely from communication with the outside world, with its one train a day, or at any rate two trains a week.
This, then, is the height of civilisation, as compared with some of the tiny settlements far off round the sea coast, where the fisher folk are completely isolated in what are called the " outports." These outports may be just a handful of cottages with less than a dozen people living there, with no means whatever of communication, either by land or sea or air, and their only touch with other human beings is in the summer time, when a coasting steamer calls in at long intervals, bringing supplies and news and mail.
Otherwise they are surrounded, on the one hand, by mile upon mile of rocky waste land, grim bare hills, swift-racing rivers, and acres of marshy land intersected with wide lakes. And on the other hand, lies the cold grey sea, which in the winter months is covered from

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coast to coast with banks of thick fog and ice floes, and there is snow—snow—snow everywhere.
The ground around them is so rocky that no vegetation exists at all, and there is no soil in which to plant trees or any growing thing. It is even said that if somebody were to die there is not sufficient earth in which to bury the poor human body.
And in spite of this arctic cold and the wicked storms and dangers of the sea, the men live in their boats, going out on to the " Banks " to catch an endless supply of fish, which is their sole occupation, their sole supply of food to eat, and their sole source of income.
The women stay huddled in their tiny wooden huts, trying to keep warm, trying to keep body and soul together, staying indoors as often as not because they have no extra clothes to put on in which to face the biting cold. Working parties are held and old clothes are collected in the capital city of St. John's, for sending out to these unfortunate people whose lives are spent in such bleak surroundings.
But one's heart bleeds for them in their hardship, and one feels that nothing can compensate for eking out their existence under such terrible conditions.
Luckily these outports are few, and there is no reason for them to increase, as the fishing fleet of to-day meets all the requirements of the times. It is estimated that this great cod-fishing industry is supplying some 1,500,000 quintals of fish (a quintal weighs II z lb.) per year to the world market, and the exporting of it brings some million pounds into the country.
A small sealing fleet is also kept busy each spring, and it is said that during March and April something like zoo,000 seals are killed. Poor darlings I Their skins make extremely good leather, as well as such good fur coats, and excellent oil is taken from their bodies ; so this dreadful havoc in the seal world goes on year by year in those waters.

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PAPER MILLS
But the most valuable asset and the greatest industry for the people of Newfoundland is that of turning their forest trees into paper. All the newspaper on which the Daily Mai/ is printed, to the tune of some 3 5o tons A DAY, comes from the one paper mill at Grand Falls ; and in the huge paper mill at Corner Brook five hundred tons of paper is also made in each twenty-four hours. We had the luck to be able to visit both these two places to see how this amazing thing was done, and this is what happens.
The cutting of the trees begins in the early autumn, and continues until the snow becomes too deep. The wood is then hauled either piecemeal or on sleighs over the hard, snow-covered, slippery ground, to the rivers and lakes, which are by then already covered with thick ice. When the spring thaw comes, these melt, and all the millions of neatly sawn logs lying on the surface start to drift down-stream, carried by the flood of the melting snow and ice. They are automatically carried along, sometimes tearing down rapids at great speed, and other times just sliding in great " rafts " on the quiet waters of the lakes and smooth-running stretches of river.
When getting near the mills, they all get bunched up together tightly in a thick mass, covering the whole of the surface of the water, and men who are accustomed to it can skip lightly across on them as if they were a carpet. A large area of them, perhaps two acres or so in extent, is then surrounded by a huge chain of large logs strung together, forming what is called a boom, and the whole caboodle is then drawn down to the mill and " parked " handy for transportation into the factory itself.
A certain amount of the necessary timber may, of course, come to the mill by rail, and these logs, already sawn into the right length, are spilled into the water also, to be stored handy. Then, as required, all this waiting

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mass of timber is drawn into the maw of the mill on a moving spiked belt.
The logs then have to be de-barked. This process is done by dropping them all in one continuous stream, hundreds all together, into a huge revolving drum, where they just go rumbling and tumbling and bumping and thumping and crashing and bashing, over and over and on top of each other, so that gradually bit by bit all the bark gets cracked and scraped right off.
And what do you think this turning drum is called ? They call it Eton and Harrow, because into this machine every kind of log gets thrown to learn his lesson. There the big and the little, the strong and the weak, the older and the younger, all have to rub shoulders with their neighbours, they have all the rough untidy edges rubbed off, and they all come out clean and smart, tidy and useful, trimmed up and well polished, decent logs fitted for their destiny.
Poor things l Short shrift is made of them I Directly they are all smooth and ready, down they plunge into a vast crunching machine, which literally grinds them to pulp in less time than it takes to write it. In they go, shoved relentlessly down into the mouth of this ravening monster, which chews up millions of logs a year, sucking them in as strong, hard, fine trees, which have taken probably thirty years or more to grow, and literally pouring them out again into cauldrons, as a soft slithery mush, like wet porridge.
This porridge goes through many processes to make it the necessary strength and consistency, it gets cooked and stirred, diluted and mixed, and then in the end you see it come pouring out on to huge, wide, moving wire-gauze screens.
This thin liquid layer of pulp then rushes on between immense heavy rollers, and as these squeeze the liquid dry, it leaves the actual fibre out of the liquid pressed thin and smooth and flat into sheets of paper itself.

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This huge roll of paper is literally never ending, for the liquid continues to pour through the pressing rollers throughout the twenty-four hours ; it is rolled on to immense winders, and as one huge winder is filled another one slips into its place, and it is just fascinating to watch these immense machines turning out bale after bale of beautiful, clean, perfect paper, ready for shipment to England. I love seeing things like that made, and it is a grand thing for Newfoundland that such big factories have been established there to bring work for the inhabitants to do, and to help build up nice townships for them. Corner Brook, which in 1923 was only a small fishing village and a rough lumber camp, is now quite a modern town, with comfortable well-built houses, electric light, a charming hotel, and a good hospital, and whereas then there were but few people there, there are now some 6,oua, all more or less employed or dependent on the work of this great pulp mill. They have a good school, and facilities for all sorts of games, and of course there are Scouts and Guides there.
We met them there, and we also met yet another fine little lot at Grand Falls, where companies gathered to greet us from some of the out-lying villages as well. The larger number of Guides arc, of course, to be found in the main town of St. John's, and there a splendid Rally was held, with about t,zoo Scouts and Guides taking their share. It was the first time they had ever had such a big affair and it went off splendidly.
One Guider I met there had not been able to bring any of her Guides with her, as she said she had " rather a long way to go." When I asked her where she had come from, she explained that though the journey from her home at Green Pond had been easily done this time by sea, during the winter time the only way of reaching St. John's was to go on skates for half an hour across the ice to the mainland, and then to be drawn in a sleigh by dog team to the nearest point of the railway, some thirty

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miles away, and then to travel a further hundred miles or so by train.
Isn'tit splendid that she has got Guides at all in that faraway island home ? And there are over thirty other isolated little Companies like that in different parts of the Colony, carrying on and keeping their ends up bravely, and with such a plucky spirit. To them, perhaps, Guiding has a message all of its own, for they can feel that, though so cut off from other people and out of touch and out of sight of other girls like themselves, there are many sister Guides in other parts of the world, who, knowing of their existence, will be thinking of them with kindly feelings, as unknown, unseen, far-off members of our scattered Guide family.
AMERICA
The last lap of our world tour brought us to the United States, to enjoy once again establishing contact with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts there, and to see some of the wonders of that most interesting New World. We are still apt to call it " New " because of its being so much younger in its settled civilisation than our countries of Europe, with their ancient history and tradition.
There is not very much known about life on that continent during the early Middle Ages, as the doings of the Red Indians (who were the only inhabitants) have, for obvious reasons, not been very accurately recorded. Many different tribes wandered about that continent, and these would occasionally come into conflict with each other. One of the chief tribes was known as the Iroquois, and these people were renowned for their physical strength and courage.
The Algonquins were a fine family, and the Athabascans, the Sioux, the Muscogi, and the Shoshoni tribes were also large and powerful, and built up a great tradition which is upheld by their descendants even down to the present day.

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There are many interesting tales and legends handed down to us about these people, and many of their customs, their uncanny knowledge of weather lore and nature lore, and their quaint superstitions, make fascinating reading.
But so far as we are concerned the main history of America begins with the first sighting of the land by Christopher Columbus on October Izth, 14oz, the actual landing on it by John Cabot in 1497, the further landings by other explorers during that century, and notably the definite discovery of it by the Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, whose name was ultimately taken for the new-found continent. There were years of great argument as to who should own this land. Spain felt they had a claim, Portugal France, and also England all felt that they should have a finger in the pie.
Then we jump to 1587, when Sir Walter Raleigh sent a whole shipload of people to colonise, and these settled down and named their new home " Virginia " in honour of their Virgin Queen, Elizabeth, and for a time it actually called itself a British Colony.
Stories soon began to spread to Europe about the wealth to be gained in this new world, and the following century saw the arrival of many new settlers, some coming from France, others from Germany, others from Holland, Spain, and Portugal, but mainly from the British Isles ; gradually these people spread over the valuable new territory, which they named Maryland after King William III's Queen Mary, Carolina after our former King Charles, and Georgia after our King George II, who granted a Charter to the settlers of this new bit of country.
The next important milestone in this early history came with the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, twenty-one years later. A group of very serious-minded people had got together, and they travelled over from Plymouth in the famous sailing ship, the Mayflower, and landed at Cape Cod, naming their landing-place Plymouth. You can see

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to-day, lying there on the beach in an enclosed basin surrounded by concrete walls and surmounted by an arched granite canopy, a small low brown rock, which is supposed to be the very rock upon which these brave settlers set foot for the first time on this side of the Atlantic.
The main founding of many of the Eastern States of America was, as you will see, all done by British sailors and pioneers, and it was only later that trouble arose, when France and England came to blows over the rights in Canada.
By then there were many jealousies and troubles arising in Europe, and these had their reflection on the other side of the Atlantic too. In an official History of the United States, you come upon the cold-blooded headings of " King William's War, 1690," " Queen Anne's War, 17o2 " ; " King George's War, 1744"; " French and Indian War, 1749 " ; and so on, showing that hate and malice, jealousies and distrust, were causing intense misery and suffering as people rushed into conflicts regardless of the consequences.
The people living in America at this time still counted themselves as British subjects, but they had begun to have certain grievances against the tactless control of politicians in England. While there was no conspiracy on their part for obtaining independence from England, a considerable difference had grown between the English and the American people. While America was England's child in the beginning, the child had begun to grow up and have its own ideas on how to manage its own affairs, and thus the time came when it felt it was best to govern itself.
It is sad that misunderstandings which arise lead so suddenly into actual fighting, and it is so easy for us, a long time afterwards, to argue as to how much better things could have been settled and arranged by the arguers at the time. The revolution that decided America's inde-

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pendence broke out in 1775, and lasted for eight dreadful years, but though costing untold money and untold unhappiness, in the loss of lives, it was an epoch-making turning-point in the world's history.
Standing on its own feet, governing itself and developing itself, this great country has gone from strength to strength, opening up new territories, creating vast industries, and becoming an immensely powerful nation of go-ahead virile people.
SCOUTING
Our brother Movement, the Boy Scouts, is a very big thing in America, and is very much appreciated and well thought of. It is estimated that over six million men, now grown up and at work, have been Boy Scouts when they were young, and all this came about from the tiniest beginning.
In fact the little seed that took Scouting to America was a small good turn done by a Scout to an unknown stranger in London in 191o. The story is told that this business man had lost his way in a fog in London, when a boy appeared out of the gloomy darkness and offered his help in guiding him to his hotel.
The American, grateful for this kind act, offered him a tip, and the boy, without hesitation, said " No thanks. A Scout doesn't take a reward for a good turn." The man was very taken aback at this, and on asking questions as to the why and the wherefore of this new code of manners and honour, he was thrilled to learn of how this ideal was spreading into the hearts and minds of boys all over Great Britain. He was entranced and inspired, and took immediate steps to transplant this idea to his own country, and at once, like a forest fire, it spread and ramped across the United States and caught the fancy of American boyhood in its sway.
The highest award that is given to outstanding men working for the Movement in America is the " Silver 13

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Buffalo," and some few years ago the Boy Scouts of America presented a large handsome bronze model of a buffalo to the Boy Scouts' Association of this country. It stands at Gilwell Park, the Scouts' Training Centre in Epping Forest, as a sign of friendship between the Scouts of the two great English-speaking nations. Underneath is written :
" Presented to the Boy Scouts' Association of Great Britain, from the Boy Scouts' Association of America, in memory of the Unknown Scout, whose good turn brought Scouting to America."
So you see, as I have said before, it is the little things that you do that count just as much as the big ones. Your small daily good turns may not perhaps have quite such enormous results as this one of long ago, but they are in their own way just as important in making the world a happier and a better place to live in.
Then the founding of the Girl Scouts of America is also a romantic tale. It has been written in full in a charming book about the life of Mrs. Juliette Low, whose memory is loved and honoured as the founder of our Movement in America. American by birth, she was married to an Englishman, and used to live half the year in each of her two countries. She chanced to meet OUR founder one day, and then became interested in Guides when our Movement was first being started in 191o, and she arranged for a Company to have its weekly meetings at her house in London.
And then she decided that this wonderful game, which was already firing the imagination of girls of this and other countries in Europe, must be brought within the reach of the girls of the land of her birth. She said to herself, " America must have this thing," and forthwith, in January I91z, off she sailed from England with the determination in her mind to inaugurate Guiding in America.

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Oddly enough, the ship in which she set sail was the same one in which the Chief Scout and I met, there and then, for the first time, though little did we think what a momentous voyage it was for the three of us !
Mrs. Low had a most magnetic and forceful personality, and when she asked people to do things for her nobody could say her nay. She sped all over the United States with the concentrated energy of a whirlwind, organising, starting, and encouraging and fostering the growth of this child of her heart.
Some people ask why it is that our sister Movement in America has a different name. It happened this way. Whilst their Founder was away on one of her periodical visits to England, some members of the Committee suggested that they should adopt a new name of their own which would be distinctive in America ; they agreed that as everybody knew what a Boy Scout was, and as people were sympathetic towards the Boy Scout Movement, it would be wiser to call their Girls' Movement the GIRL Scouts, instead of keeping the original name. Without hesitation this was arranged and Girl Scouts they have been from that time onwards.
The Boy Scout organisation in America did not like this change, and urged that it should not be made, since they felt that by taking the boys' name a wrong impression would be made in the minds of the parents. It would make them think that the girls were imitating the boys Too much, and give the girls the idea of being mannish and tomboy-ish. They thought that it would be detrimental to the movement for the boys, and make them feel that " Scouting " was not a manly enough game for them if girls were going to play it too I However, nowadays in many families the sons are Scouts and the daughters are Scouts too—all of them good Scouts together.
Between the two of them, the Movements in America to-day are touching the lives of well over a million boys

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and nearly half a million girls—and they are making a grand success of it too.
The Founder of the Girl Scouts did not, alas, live to see the complete fruition of her planting of the seed of Scouting. Though in failing health she gave of her untiring service to the Movement she loved so well and spoke ceaselessly with wide vision of what this work could do in bringing the girlhood of all nations into friendly touch and understanding. She saw her dream come true when in 19.6 the World Conference was held in the United States, with delegates from thirty-five countries all gathered in comradeship together.
And then, her life's mission fulfilled, she passed to Higher Service, leaving as a legacy to her country this strong vigorous Movement for young America, and the memory of indomitable courage, vigorous energy, and unparalleled devotion to her muse.
It has seemed fitting that a memorial to her memory should not be limited to a tablet of marble, but should be rather a continuing fulfilment of her hopes and wishes. So a Memorial Fund has been raised in America for enabling Girl Scouts to travel across from one country to another, to meet one another in their own surroundings, and thus, through personal knowledge and understanding of one another's customs, aims, and viewpoints, to spread goodwill, sympathy, and friendship throughout the world. Girl Scouting is certainly a very going concern in nearly all the forty-eight States of America, and their growth in 1934 was bigger than ever before. In their Annual Report they said that " odd growing pains in the region of the Rockies meant that forty-nine hitherto Girl Scout-less communities were now alive with grey-green uniforms."
And these grey-green uniforms are certainly very attractive and serviceable. The overall is very much the same in design as the blue one that you Guides all wear in the British Empire, but when out on hikes and in

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camp the Girl Scouts wear a sort of short " middy blouse " and bloomers.
Camp looms very large on the horizon of a Girl Scout, and Camp in America, is rather different to the average Camp that Guides go to. For one thing, ordinary people, unconnected with Scouting, go out camping a great deal, and whole families will spend the entire summer under canvas ; parents send their children away for two months at a time to organised camps during the summer holidays.
Hundreds of big expensive holiday camps are held in the loveliest surroundings for people to stay at for weeks on end for bathing and games and sport. These camps are held, of course, mainly for pleasure and for people to get away from the noisy city life, and their occupations are purely for fun and their own amusement. As often as not they have permanent buildings, paid cooks, light and water laid on, so that the name " camp " is slightly misleading.
But in the splendidly run Girl Scout camps, mixed in with the fun and the recreation, there are facilities for the girls to learn many things that will be a joy to them and of value too.
I visited one of these at Long Pond in Massachusetts, and it was an exquisite scene indeed. Round a group of five beautiful lakes the woods have been left wild and untouched, and snuggled away into their depths are here and there little private encampments of canvas shelters and rough-hewn log huts. Each Patrol has a wee woodland home of its own, and for the whole group there is the central meeting-place for meals and camp fires.
A great deal of time can be spent as everyone likes, but instruction is given in cooking, hygiene, knotting, drawing, singing, tent-making and pitching, making models, sailing, rowing, swimming, diving, life-saving, axemanship, fire-making, construction of shelters, nature lore, and all that sort of thing.

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In this way all the lucky Girl Scouts can have a grand and good holiday, but they can be learning jolly useful things too at the same time. This lovely place has been bought and given to the Girl Scouts by our good friend Mrs. Storrow.
You will all know of this Fairy Godmother of our Movement, as being the donor also of the lovely Guides Chalet in Switzerland, where, away amongst the glorious mountains of Adelboden, Guides of many nations come together in their hundreds each year.
One of the sites at Long Pond, known as Pine Tree Camp, has been fitted up as a Training Camp for the grown-up leaders of the Movement, so that they may learn the better how to play the game of Scouting with their younger sisters. They come here from all parts of the United States, to study and practise together in these superb surroundings.
Some people may like to go for their recreation to towns, or to share the gay laughter of fellow beings in crowded places ; but for sheer delight I have seen nothing more lovely than this chosen spot, where the land rises to face blue water stretching smooth and still towards the sunset, and the quiet is only broken by the soughing of the wind in the branches, and the gentle lip-lap of the wavelets on the sandy shore.
This is not meant to be a diary. I am only trying to give you little mind pictures of what I have seen, throwing out crumbs, as you might say, from my own private store of experiences on my travels. Most of it is centred round Guiding, as that was the object of my tour—and, goodness me what thousands of Guides have shared in this tour.
I am not awfully good at arithmetic, but if we totted up the numbers of Guides, Brownies, Rangers, and Lones and things, and add to those all the Rovers and Scouts and Cubs that we have seen on this long

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journey, they would mount up into a pretty goodly number.
Here is a sort of list which will give you something to go upon. I have not kept an accurate record, but roughly these are the sort of round figures of those whom we have seen, and those who have seen us, at all the different stopping-places en route.

  Scouts and Guides
1934  approximately
October Gibraltar  100
November Toulon 200
Port Said 2,500
Aden 85
December Colombo  3,000
Penang (Malaya)  500
Kuala Kangsar 200
Kuala Lumpur 1,200
Singapore  750
Batavia (Java) 2,000
Samarang 250
Sourabaya  200
Darwin (Australia) 12
Thursday Island  200
1935 Brisbane 1,000
January Jamboree in Australia  20,000
Adelaide 950
February Sydney 3,000
Auckland (New Zealand) 3,500
Rotorua 30
Hastings 120
Featherston 30
Wellington 1,300
March Christchurch 750
Dunedin 1,700
April Raratonga  50
San Franeisco (America) 6,100
Seattle 7,000
Victoria (Vancouver Island)  3,000
Vancouver (British Columbia) 6,000
Kamloops 1,000
Calgary (Alberta) 3,000
Edmonton  2,500
Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) 1,900
Moose Jaw 60
May Regina 3,000
Brandon (Manitoba) 1,000
 
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  Scouts and Guides
1935  approximately
May Winnipeg  2,000
Fort William (Ontario) 800
Sudbury 400
Toronto 26,000
London 4,300
Ottawa 5,000
Montreal (Quebec) 8,000
Quebec 1,500
Monkton (New Brunswick)  900
June St John 3,200
Sydney (Nova Scotia)  2,000
Halifax  3,500
Charlottetown (Prince Edward Island) 450
Porte Aux Basques (Newfoundland) 20
Corner Brook  60
Grand Falls 250
St John's   1,400
Boston (U S  )   120
New York  1,500
 

Now if you can do a nice little addition sum, you can gather from the result that the Chief Scout and I have not exactly been idle, but have seen enthusiastic Scouts and Guides living in different countries all round the world.
NEW YORK
Whichever way you look at it New York is enormous. When you arrive by steamer, from miles out at sea you can see its tall spires and towers stretching up into the sky from the water's edge. Coming from the country you see this vast expanse of city spread out like a giant carpet ahead of you. And when you are in the heart of it you feel rather like a very small ant, as you walk along the sidewalk of the handsome streets, with colossal buildings rearing their immense height above your head. If you know London, or Manchester, or Birmingham, or Glasgow, or any of our larger cities, you may think you have seen some big buildings. But they are as pigmies compared to what you find in New York. Some of the larger ones in our towns may be like the smaller ones in the chief streets of this immense city, and between

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these you find buildings that literally have their heads up in the clouds, with over a hundred storeys. It is quite usual on a dull day for their tops to be hidden in mist. We had dinner on the sixty-fifth floor of the Radio City Building, and in this one building alone there are hundreds of offices, dozens of shops, clubrooms, dance halls, restaurants, and two theatres, and it is estimated that there are ten thousand people working under its roof each day.
Of course New York is not the only pebble on the beach. All the large cities in America build sky-scrapers, as naturally these economise ground space, and to save people going long distances to their work they grow their buildings upwards instead of longways ! Chicago can boast the highest building in the world, I believe, and there are many quite marvellous building feats in other centres.
In Boston is a very noted one that I must mention, as here you find the very handsome building erected and owned by the Christian Science Publishing Company. This is where the Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, lived amd worked and died. Her work and her example are alive to-day in the hearts of millions of people the world over, and here in her own city is this great " power house " whence are issued all the books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers pertaining to Christian Science.
The building itself covers an area of 320,00o square feet, and is beautiful in its proportions and stately and dignified in all its arrangements. It is truly international in its composition, for its rooms contain many bits from foreign lands. The marble of which the floors are made came from Italy, the tiles for its roof from Czechoslovakia ; Australia sent silky oak for the doors, and the Dutch East Indies supplied ebony inlay for the panelling ; Germany sent glass for the lighting fixtures, whilst Belgium provided black marble for the stairs. And

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little old England gave of her oil paintings and tapestries and furnishings for the creature comforts of the visitors. Over the doorways are carved texts from the Scriptures, and at the four corners appear the simple words : Faith, Hope, Love, Mercy, and Justice, Purity, Health, and Peace.
There these words are, written in stone—and what, I wonder, do they mean to the average passer-by, and to each one of us in out lives to-day ?
In the midst of New York City is the busy Girl Scout Office, and we just happened to strike this place during a heat wave. I had often heard and read of these, but it has to be felt to be understood. As we walked along the street we just got more and more boiled and frizzled, the air we breathed seemed to be dried and parboiled too, the asphalt of the roads even got soft and melted, and the pavement felt hot to the soles of one's feet. And then we stepped into an air-conditioned hall. In a hot climate certainly this new system of " air-conditioning" is a great comfort. Hotels, shops, restaurants, trains, and even some private houses are now treated in this way.
Windows and doors are kept tight shut, and all the air that comes into the house goes through water to be washed, filters to be purified, and fans to be cooled ; and in the end, to make quite sure that all the air you breathe will be absolutely pure, it is driven through a blanket of thick white felt, to give it a last clean-up. All the dampness is taken out of it, so you can never get chilled, but always feel the temperature is even and the air nice and fresh.
It is said that after a time the felt becomes quite grey and then black, from the dirt that it collects out of the air coming in from outside, and it must be a good thing, I supppose, to ensure that we don't breathe in so much dirt into our lungs.
But all the same, this is all rather an artificial and ex-

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pensive business, which most of us can do without in our more old-fashioned little country, and if we are healthy and strong we are able to stand up to swallowing a good deal of grime and breathing a good deal of impure air in this bit of the world in which we live.
One is apt to think of America so much as a land of masses of people living in vast cities. It is true that with a population of a hundred and seventy million, cities are bound to be big to hold them all. And as American people love speed they naturally live in motor-cars a great deal. In fact it is said that there are I cars per every home in the country ! It certainly looks like it in the streets of the cities, and great care is taken for the protection of car drivers as well as for pedestrians. Walking people are given " side walks " so that there is no excuse for them to be run over, and cars are given special wide roads purely for their own use.
One such road, leading into New York from New Jersey, is built on a high bridge several miles long, stretching right along over the roofs of houses and shops, passing over other roads and railways like an aerial roadway, along which cars hastening with business people can simply rush without let or hindrance, and without the driver having any anxiety about people crossing the road or walking along its edge.
CAMP EDITH MACEY
Some way out of New York the Girl Scouts have got their own " Foxlease," called Camp Edith Macey. It was given to the Movement in memory of the first Chairman of their National Board, and Camp Andree, which is next door to it, was given as a memorial to a dearly loved daughter.
Andree Clark was a keen Girl Scout. She had been delicate for many years, and her parents, in their deep devotion, could not let her out of their sight. All that riches could buy was hers ; all the care she needed was

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lavished upon her. One day her Troop was going to camp, and she begged to be allowed to go with her friends to share the open-air life and the fun and the work. Her parents were over-anxious, and not knowing what camp life would mean to her they decided instead to take her away with them for a less exacting holiday.
It was a cruel and bitter thing indeed, that on that ill-fated holiday Andree caught a chill that laid her low with fever, and in the end led to so serious an illness that nothing could be done to save the life of this beloved and precious child.
Here in these lovely surroundings, kept as a wild and beautiful Camp Ground in her memory, Girl Scouts come out to camp all summer long, living the healthy life of the out-of-doors, learning to be strong in mind and body.
Two thousand of them gathered together to greet us, under the arching trees of a clearing in the wood, called " The Green Cathedral." It was good to see such a crowd of them, grouped on the hillside, the sunlight and shade flecked on the grey-green uniforms and the smiling upturned faces.
And out of the shadow of the woodland path came a procession of Girl Scout Leaders carrying flags of all the different nations in which Girl Scouting has taken a hold.
As I look back on that moving scene it appears to me almost like a visionary peep into the future, and a foretelling of how, coming out of the shadows of the past into the sunlight of knowledge and understanding, we are banded together in Scouting and Guiding to work for the right, to uphold the sense of goodness and honour, and to engender Friendship, Understanding, and Peace between nations.

THE END