In July he left the Highlands, which were then, in some
ways, as wild as Labrador is now. About this time there
was a map made by a Frenchman in Paris which gave all
the chief places in the Lowlands quite rightly, but left
the north of Scotland blank, with the words 'Unknown land
here, inhabited by the "Iglandaires"!' When his leave
began Wolfe went first to Dublin--'dear, dirty Dublin,'
as it used to be called--where his uncle, Major Walter
Wolfe, was living. He wrote to his father: 'The streets
are crowded with people of a large size and well limbed,
and the women very handsome. They have clearer skins,
and fairer complexions than the women in England or
Scotland, and are exceeding straight and well made';
which shows that he had the proper soldier's eye for
every pretty girl. Then he went to London and visited
his parents in their new house at the corner of Greenwich
Park, which stands to-day very much the same as it was
then. But, wishing to travel, he succeeded, after a great
deal of trouble, in getting leave to go to Paris. Lord
Bury was a friend of his, and Lord Bury's father, the
Earl of Albemarle, was the British ambassador there. So
he had a good chance of seeing the best of everything.
Perhaps it would be almost as true to say that he had as
good a chance of seeing the worst of everything. For
there were a great many corrupt and corrupting men and
women at the French court. There was also much misery in
France, and both the corruption and the misery were soon
to trouble New France, as Canada was then called, even
more than they troubled Old France at home.