Feinberg/Whitman
Box 17 Folder 1
General Correspondence
Stafford, Montgomery
Aug 4, 18806  Montreal Canada
August 4 '80

Dear Mont

I have come on
here (about 500 miles further)
& am stopping in this city for a few days situated very comfortably
& feeling pretty well - the
journey is doing me good, for
I lay quite sick in London
about three weeks.  I am better & enjoying everything.  I am
traveling mostly by water, -
and spent several days in
"the Lakes of the Thousand
Islands" - that is what they
call a part of the St Lawrence
river, some 50 miles long & 10 to
20 wide, filled with the prettiest
islands you ever see, all sizes,
some quite big with fine farms
on them, & some very moderate -

I often think of you all, I
wish your father could be
out here & travel through it once see the country &
the water & farming & everything
- he would enjoy seeing it all,
& would understand many things
about it better than I do - But
you ought to take some such
trip Mont boy, it would make
you open your eyes - (Only
I must say I like the smell
of the salt and sedge along the
water, it is what I was born to,
like 'Long Island or Old Jersey'-
-but it is all fresh here) -

-I am going on some 400
miles further north east to the river Saguenay
(you will see it on the map of
Canada toward north east) - then
back again to stay awhile in the
old city of Quebec - give my love to
your parents - tell your mother I rec'd her
letter - love to Debby. I rec'd her letter too -
- love to Ed and Harry Jo and Van and Ruthey
& Georgey - I rec'd a postal from Harry -
Mont you & your mother write.  I send envelopes.
Walt Whitman

Shall be back in London Aug 14
- I want Ed and Debby and Jo to read this -
Harry too, if home

"
Montgomery Sta
Kirkwood
New Jersey
U S
6
This is in general quite a great farming
country - the land not near so
rich & good as out west in the
United States - dont raise such
corn &c - but it is a healthy
& beautiful country here, good
climate - pretty good for wheat -
they raise a good deal of barley
here (perhaps more than any
other grain) - but a fair show
of wheat - first rate for grass
- ditto for apples - then there
is so good a chance for a farmer
to have his farm run down to
the water - As I travel I see
hundreds and hundred of farms seems to me a majority of them
along the banks - they set a little
up & sprinkled with trees - looks
as though [they] the folks ought
to be happy - (but I suppose they
are just like all the rest of us) -
- It is very different from what I saw
out in Kansas last fall - no water there

others rocky hills like of an
acre or two covered with cedars -
-but the water every where I travel in this country is the best
part - it is more beautiful
and bright than you can
conceive, very clean & pure
of a sky - blue color & there seems no end of it. - I travel
for days & days over it, from
Lake Huron on through Lakes
Erie and Ontario & down the
St Lawrence to here (700 miles)
& it is just as fascinating to
me now as ever - I have been in sight of it or traveling o it
ever since I have been in Canada - I never
get tired of it - (We have
nothing like it our way,
so grand & bright & clear.)
- This is a large & busy
city, the most important in 
Canada, ships and steamboats &
immense numbers of emigrants -