C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

Southampton to Edmonton 13our eyes. It was a startling experience for us both and Gwen had been highlyindignant.We had been given a two-berth second class cabin because the ship was overcrowdedaft. When the stewardess came to call us in the morning she would say:"Your cabin is a little ice-box; most refreshing." Fortunately for us Gwen's nstswere strong enough to open any hole porthole which was screwed down. At mealtimes and on deck we experienced the full flavour of our steerage companionswho did not often change their clothes. The worst thing that we had to face wasthe stuffiness of the dining room where we had second sittings, during which theair always seemed to taste of cabbage. There was, of course, over-crowding ondeck. One almost had to walk on women and children if one moved about at all.Among our fellow-travellers the Irishman, Digby Hussy de Burgh, was asdelightful as his name, incurably eloquent, with a spate of scintillating ideasabout things seen and unseen. Our planned journey into Alaska fi.lled him withexcitement. He was returning to his home, a small island off the coast of BritishColumbia and there were many other islands in that part, he told us, islands thatwere simply waiting for pioneers who would settle there and populate them. "Icould fi.nd you an island," he said, looking at us with admiration and speakingwith his easy Irish flow of words, "it's a grand life out there it is and it's grandpioneers you two girls would make." The two "girls," being over 40, did not feellike accepting his plan for populating a strange island in the Pacinc or indeed anyisland at all.One of the strangest things about travel is that one's memory loses so muchand so many of the things seen, loses them completely or only remembers themwith wavy outlines; yet those who study mind and memory aver that nothing inone's life experience is lost and each large or small event only needs the rightwords or the right recurrence to release it.Hardly anything of our long journey from Quebec to Winnipeg remains withme now, although with the help of my diary 1 can recapture certain fragments ofexperience, can see through the train window glimpses of the country flying past,lakes, rivers, dark fi.rs, green-yellow poplars just breaking into leaf, mile aftermile of monotonous flat country lined with untidy shacks, a bittern standinghump-shouldered in a pool, sheets of white trillium and some beautifulErythronium, birch, spruce and a maple with red flowers and many leagues of a lowshrub, like heather, called Cassiope. I can also record the mere fact that we spentseveral hours in Montreal and had supper at a hostel for 35 cents, about 18 pence