On board train between Montreal and Halifax
13 March, 1900

Dear Jim;

Here we are on the move at last, after 3 � weeks in Ottawa. We loaded up the horses on Sunday afternoon, after having church parade to the cathedral in the morning. In the evening, I had to hustle and pay a round of visits. I think I have more friends in Ottawa than in Winnipeg now & they could not do enough for us.

On Saturday I was out to dinner at the house of a gentleman named Fraser, a lumber merchant. The dinner was first class, and afterwards we went to the theatre. Then we went back to the house and had supper & I went off home loaded with a box of cigars, & my pockets full of fruit and sweets. Next day Mrs. Fraser sent a basket of jellies & preserves, biscuits etc, far more than we could possibly carry, so we had to scatter them round among the boys. Then there is a family named Chamberlin who have been just as kind & sent baskets of stuff all the time we were in Ottawa, besides having us to tea two or three times. Mr. Chamberlin is paymaster at the House of Commons. He used to be in the insurance business & I think has written to the Pater, sending some of his insurance statistics etc. Mrs. Webster too was very kind, & when I was laid up with a sore throat, both she & Mrs Chamberlin wanted me to get leave and go to their place to be nursed. Needless to say, this was out of the question.

Bert was laid up Friday and Saturday with a sore throat & biliousness, but is about well again. Last Wednesday, we had our first mounted parade when the Governor General presented the colours. On Thursday we paraded, mounted again, to Parliament Hill, where the squad [?] were presented to us. The horses behaved very well, considering most of them had not been saddled before [?].

I suppose you clipped the papers about the reception we had in Montreal, & you may depend that nothing you may read will be an exaggeration; it was simply magnificent. We paraded about 4 miles & every foot of the way the streets and buildings were lined with people. The dinner at the Windsor was splendid, 650 seats being provided.

I must cut this short, as I have just come off guard on the horse cars, after being on from 10 o'clock last night to 9 o'clock this morning. We had to keep jumping all night to keep our feet from freezing and then I think most of us had them touched. I had only about 4 hours sleep on Sunday night, so I think I'll have to roll in for a while now. I expect Eva will have received before this reaches you, 2 photos which I sent from Ottawa.

I had my photo taken by Steele & you will receive them from his place in
Winnipeg in a fortnight or so.

I will write again from Halifax before we leave. In the meantime, au revoir. Show this to Stan, as I do not feel like tackling any more writing today. I expressed my civilian duds, addressed to Stan, at theVendome.

Yours,

Charlie