We
Passed Through A Single Lock In Company With
Rafts Of Pine Logs Which Were On The Way To New
York, To Be Used For Spars.
A lockage fee of
twenty-five cents for our boat the lock-master
told us would be collected at Chambly Basin.
It was a pull of nearly six miles to St. Denis,
where the same scene of comfort and plenty
prevailed.
Women were washing clothes in large
iron pots at the river's edge, and the hum of the
spinning-wheels issued from the doorways of
the farm-houses. Beehives in the well-stocked
gardens were filled with honey, and the
strawthatched barns had their doors thrown wide
open, as though waiting to receive the harvest.
At intervals along the highway, over the grassy
hills, tall, white wooden crosses were erected;
for this people, like the Acadians of old, are very
religious. Down the current floated "pin-flats,"
a curious scow-like boat, which carries a square
sail, and makes good time only when running
before the wind. St. Antoine and St. Marks
were passed, and the isolated peak of St. Hilaire
loomed up grandly twelve hundred feet on the
right bank of the Richelieu, opposite the town
Beloeil. One mile above Beloeil the Grand
Trunk Railroad crosses the stream, and here we
passed the night. Strong winds and rain squalls
interrupted our progress. At Chambly Basin
we tarried until the evening of July 16, before
entering the canal. Chambly is a
watering-place for Montreal people, who come here to
enjoy the fishing, which is said to be fair.
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