narrow at bow and stern, and made of pine boards, have therefore been invented, and are found much better adapted to the river than any others. These boats are about forty feet long and six across the centre, and are navigated by four men and a pilot. Each boat carries about five tons, and is provided with a small mast and sails,-six setting-poles about nine feet long, shod at their lower extremities with iron which terminates in a sharp point,-an anchor, -and the necessary cooking apparatus. In these boats, all the merchandize destined for Upper Canada is conveyed; and, fitted out in this style, they depart from La Chine, four or five of them generally forming one party. They quickly arrive in Lake St. Louis, which is formed by the junction of the Ottawais, or Grand River, with the St. Lawrence. If the wind happens to blow favourably when they are passing through this Lake, they hawl up their sails until they arrive at the Cascades, which are about thirty miles from Montreal. At the Cascades, a short canal has been cut and locks formed by Government, through which the vessels pass, till they attain the head of these rapids, after which they proceed without departing from the river before they arrive at the Cedars, where, again, by means of other locks, they ascend the most difficult part of the rapids. The current between the Cascades and the Cedars is so very impetuous, that the boat-men are obliged to have recourse to their setting-poles, which they fix in the bed of the river; and, by the pressure of each man upon his own instrument, they propel the boat upwards with astonishing celerity. These exertions, though fatiguing in the extreme, they are often obliged to continue for several hours, without intermis + The Canadians who navigate these Batteaux, have a favourite air, called the Boat Song, which they always sing whilst rowing up and down the river. It commences: Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré. and the refrain to every verse, is A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer, A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer. Moore, on sailing up the St. Lawrence, endeavoured, as he says, to harmonize this air, by writing the following stanzas: FAINTLY as tolls the evening chime, Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time; Soon as the woods on shore look dim, We'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn. Row, brothers, row! the stream runs fast, The rapids are near, and the day-light's past! Why should we our sail unfurl? There is not a breath the blue wave to curl; But when the wind blows off the shore, Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar. Blow, breezes, blow! the stream runs fast, Ottawai's tide! this trembling moon Blow, breezes, blow! the stream runs fast, sion; and, not unfrequently, even their best endeavours in this way prove abortive. When this is the case, they make a rope fast to the bow of the boat; and, leaving only the pilot on board, they plunge into the water and tow her by main strength up the foaming cataracts. This is the manner in which they perform the arduous passage, which, though only 120 miles, they seldom accomplish in less than ten days. How the men who are employed in this difficult navigation exist, without ruining their constitutions, is a mystery which I am utterly unable to explain. They are compelled, almost every hour, when actually melting with heat and fainting through fatigue, to jump into the water, frequently up to their arm-pits, and to remain in it towing the boats, until they are completely chilled. They then have recourse to the aid of ardent spirits, of which on all occasions they freely partake, and, in a few minutes, are once more bathed in perspiration. The author of these beautiful lines observes: "Without that charm which association gives to every little memorial of scenes or feelings that are past, the melody may perhaps be thought common and trifling; but I remember, when we have entered at sunset upon one of those beautiful lakes into which the St. Lawrence so gradually and unexpectedly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have never given me; and now, there is not a note of it which does not recal to my memory the dip of our oars in the St. Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive, during the whole of this very interesting voyage." The principal rapids between Montreal and Prescott, are the CEDARS and the CASCADES already mentioned, the COTEAU DU LAC, and the LONG SAULT, the latter of which are about nine miles in extent; and, though they are seldom ascended in less than a day, boats have been known to descend through their whole length in fifteen minutes. While about 140 of the settlers took their passage from La Chine in what the Canadians call "Durham-boats," my father and his family, with the remainder of the settlers, embarked in a vessel of the same description. The accommodations which this boat afforded were so poor, that our situation, during the thirteen days of our voyage from La Chine to Prescott, was in reality "below the reach of envy." To make room for my mother and the children, in the wretched little hole of a cabin, my brother and I were frequently obliged to sleep on the shore in the open air, the refreshing zephyrs being our only curtains, and the "spangled heavens, a shining frame," our resplendent canopy. Taverns are undoubtedly found in many parts along the banks of the river; but as the boats do not always stop in the neighbourhood of those refectories, we seldom had any other method of reposing our weary bodies, than the one to which I have now alluded. One night in particular, when we felt the air rather too cool for sleeping on the ground, my brother and I, with three of the settlers, solicited permission of a Canadian farmer, to lie on the floor of his kitchen. This request, though humble and moderate, was peremptorily refused. We asked for neither bed nor blanket, meat nor drink, but barely for leave to stretch our fatigued limbs on the uncovered boards, yet even this was denied. We were in the act of quietly returning to the boat, when, on approaching the door of his stable, we found it open, entered, and had but just discovered some clean straw upon which we designed to recline our heads for the night, when,-" Tell it not in Gath! Publish it not in Askelon!"-the owner stalked in, and, on recognizing us, commanded our instant departure. Marchez donc tout de suite! was re-iterated half a dozen times in less than a minute, and Sacrez vous, hommes Anglois! rounded every period. We were therefore compelled to decamp, and to take our usual nightly station upon the shore. This little incident banished sleep from my eyes; and I spent the greater part of the night in the indulgence of the most gloomy reflections. That' fondly-beloved isle, where the genius of hospitality continually holds her court and freely spreads her social influence, again recurred to my memory: I thought of her humblest sons, generous and humane, sons of benevolence and toil, whose hard labour just gives what life requires, but gives no more; yet, who, with the ever-ready smile of heart-felt sympathy, are willing to share that hardearned little with the weary traveller whom chance |