Sometimes It Appeared As If There Were No Egress, And As If We Were Running Straight Upon A Rock, And The Water Is Everywhere So Deep, That From The Deck Of The Steamer People Can Pull The Leaves From The Trees.

A hundred varieties of trees and shrubs grow out of the grey lichen-covered rocks - it seems barbarous that the paddles of a steamer should disturb their delicate shadows.

If I found this lake so beautiful on a day in the middle of October, when the bright autumn tints had changed into a russet brown, and when a chill north-east wind was blowing about the withered leaves, and the snow against the ship - and when, more than all, I was only just recovering from ague - what would it be on a bright summer-day, when the blue of heaven would be reflected in the clear waters of the St. Lawrence!

By nine a furious snow-storm rendered all objects indistinct, and the fog had thickened to such an extent that we could not see five feet ahead, so we came to anchor for an hour. A very excellent breakfast was despatched during this time, and at ten we steamed off again, steering by compass on a river barely a mile wide! The New Era was a boat of a remarkably light draught of water. The saloon, or deck-house, came to within fifteen feet of the bow, and on the hurricane-deck above there was a tower containing a double wheel, with which the ship is steered by chains one hundred feet long. There is a look-out place in front of this tower, generally occupied by the pilot, a handsome, ruffian-looking French voyageur, with earrings in his ears. Captain Chrysler, whose caution, urbanity, and kindness render him deservedly popular, seldom leaves this post of observation, and personally pays very great attention to his ship; for the river St. Lawrence has as bad a reputation for destroying the vessels which navigate it as the Mississippi.

The snow was now several inches deep on deck, and, melting near the deck- house, trickled under the doors into the saloon. The moisture inside, also, condensed upon the ceiling, and produced a constant shower-bath for the whole day. Sofas and carpets were alike wet, everybody sat in goloshes - the ladies in cloaks, the gentlemen in oilskins; the smell of the latter, and of so many wet woollen clothes, in an apartment heated by stove-heat, being almost unbearable. At twelve the fog and snow cleared away, and revealed to view the mighty St. Lawrence - a rapid stream whirling along in small eddies between slightly elevated banks dotted with white homesteads. We passed a gigantic raft, with five log shanties upon it, near Prescott. These rafts go slowly and safely down the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa, till they come to La Chine, where frequent catastrophes happen, if one may judge from the timber which strews the rocks. A gentleman read from a newspaper these terrible statistics, "horrible if true," - "Forty-four murders and seven hundred murderous assaults have been committed at New York within the last six months." (Sensation.) We stopped at Prescott, one of the oldest towns in Canada, and shortly afterwards passed the blackened ruins of a windmill, and some houses held by a band of American "sympathisers" during the rebellion in 1838, but from which they were dislodged by the cannon of the royal troops.

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