Highroads of Geography Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Canadian schoolhouse}]

8. On one day in each year the children make holiday, and plant trees in the school grounds. The teacher tells them that when they grow up they must plant trees on their farms.

9. Harvest is the busiest time of the year. Then the children rise at half-past four, and work all day long in the fields. Every one who can work at all must do so at harvest time.

10. There is also plenty of work to be done in the autumn. Everything needed in the house must be brought in before the snow begins to fall.

11. Winter is the real holiday time. No work can then be done on the land. The rivers and lakes are frozen, and everywhere there is plenty of skating. The wheels are taken off the carriages, and runners are put on instead. Horses draw them very swiftly over the frozen snow.

12. Look at the picture post-card which I send you with this letter. It shows you how Canadian boys are dressed in winter. On the ground you see a pair of snow-shoes. The boys can travel very quickly on these snow-shoes without sinking into the snow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Boys of Canada in winter.]

13. In the picture you also see a toboggan. It is a small sledge. The boy drags his toboggan up to the top of a hill. He seats himself on it and pushes off. Away he goes over the frozen snow like an arrow from a bow. It is splendid fun.

14. Those boys and girls whose homes are in towns live very much as you do. They go to school, and they play in the streets and parks. When summer comes many of them go to the seaside or to the lakeside for a holiday.

15. Sometimes a whole family goes camping in the woods. They then live in tents or in little huts by the side of a river or a lake. What happy times the children have! They go fishing, they bathe, and they dart to and fro in canoes.

16. Most of the young folks of Canada are strong and healthy. They are happy and bright, and they are not afraid of work. No children are more useful to their parents than the boys and girls of Canada.

26. THE RED MEN.

1. Tom will not forgive me unless I tell you something about the Red men of America. He has often asked me about the picture of Red men which is in my room at home.[1]

[1] See page 102. {Page 102 contains the ill.u.s.tration below}

[Ill.u.s.tration: Red Men and White Men.

(From the picture by Cyrus Cuneo, R.I. By kind permission of the C.P.R. Co.)]

2. In the old days, before white men settled in America, the Red men were masters of the land. They were tall and strong, and their skin was of a dark copper colour. Their eyes were jet black, and their hair was long and straight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Red men in wigwams}]

3. They wore very little clothing, even though the winters in North America are very cold. From the time when they were babies they were trained to bear heat and cold, hunger, thirst, and pain without grumbling.

4. When the white men landed in America, the villages of the Red men were to be found all over the country. Each of these villages was the home of a tribe. The houses were tents made of skin or huts made of wood.

5. The women or squaws did all the hard work. They planted and tilled the fields, cooked the food, and made the clothes. The babies were put into little bark cradles, which were sometimes hung from the branches of trees, and were rocked to and fro by the wind.

6. The Red men were nearly always at war, either amongst themselves or against the white men. In battle they were very crafty and skilful.

Those who fell into their hands were sometimes treated very cruelly.

7. Before the Red men went on the "warpath" they painted their faces, so as to frighten their foes. Then they took up their bows and hatchets, and, following their leader, strode silently away.

8. The Red men did not care to fight in the open. They always tried to catch their foes asleep or to take them by surprise.

9. In those days the land was full of deer and other wild animals. On the great plains where the wheat now grows huge herds of bison used to feed.

10. The Red men hunted the bison on their swift little ponies. When they were close to the animals they shot at them with arrows. If the arrows missed their mark, the Red men killed the bison with their knives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Red men on horseback hunting bison}]

11. When the white men came they hunted the bison with guns, and soon killed them off. Only a few bisons remain, and these are now kept in parks.

12. There are not many Red men left in North America. Most of them have died off. Many of those who now remain have given up their old way of living.

27. THE ESKIMOS.

1. Here is another picture for you. Look at it carefully. It shows you the people who live in the far north of Canada. They are called Eskimos.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Amongst the Eskimos.]

2. In the upper part of the picture you see a man on a sledge. He is dressed in furs, and has fur gloves on his hands. His head and ears are covered with a hood. In the far north of Canada the cold is so bitter in winter that men's hands and ears would be frost-bitten if they were not kept warm in this way.

3. In winter the sea and the land are thickly frozen over. The whole country is covered with ice and snow. The Eskimo has to travel over the ice to get from place to place. He uses a sledge drawn by dogs. There is a team of dogs in the upper part of the picture.

4. Sometimes the sledge is overturned, and the men and dogs are thrown into deep, wide cracks in the ice. Sometimes fierce storms arise, and men and dogs perish together. Sometimes food runs short, and they die of hunger.

5. In the middle part of the picture you see a tent. The Eskimos can only live in tents during the short summers; during the long dark winters they live in huts. The walls are made of stones and sods. The roof is of wood which has drifted to their sh.o.r.es. You must remember that no trees will grow in these very cold lands.

6. Some Eskimos make their winter houses of blocks of snow, with sheets of ice for the windows. Perhaps you shiver at the thought of living in a snow house, but you need not do so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Snow house}]

7. Really, a snow house is quite a snug home. The snow keeps in the heat of the house, just as a blanket keeps in the heat of your body. Perhaps you know that it is the blanket of snow spread over the ground in winter which keeps the roots of the plants from being frozen.

8. When summer comes, the snow and ice melt along the edge of the sea.

Then the Eskimo leaves his winter quarters for the seash.o.r.e.

9. The sea-sh.o.r.es of these very cold lands abound in bears, seals, foxes, and other wild animals. The sea is full of fish, and millions of gulls, geese, and other birds fly north for the summer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Polar bear}]

10. When a boy is ten years of age his father gives him a bow and arrows and a canoe. Then he thinks himself a man indeed. In the lower part of the picture you see a man in an Eskimo canoe. He is going to hunt seals and small whales.

11. Now I must bring this long letter to a close. I shall write you one more before I start for home. I am eager to see you all again.--Your loving FATHER.

28. FATHER'S LAST LETTER.