After That Comes The Second
Freshet, Occasioned By The Melting Of Far-Off Snow And Ice Up In
The Great Northern Lakes, Which Are Little Known.
These rafts are
of immense construction, such as those which we have seen on the
Rhone and Rhine, and often contain timber to the value of two,
three, and four thousand pounds.
At the rapids the large rafts
are, as it were, unyoked, and divided into small portions, which go
down separately. The excitement and motion of such transit must, I
should say, be very joyous. I was told that the Prince of Wales
desired to go down a rapid on a raft, but that the men in charge
would not undertake to say that there was no possible danger;
whereupon those who accompanied the prince requested his Royal
Highness to forbear. I fear that, in these careful days, crowned
heads and their heirs must often find themselves in the position of
Sancho at the banquet. The sailor prince, who came after his
brother, was allowed to go down a rapid, and got, as I was told,
rather a rough bump as he did so.
Ottawa is a great place for these timber rafts. Indeed, it may, I
think, be called the headquarters of timber for the world. Nearly
all the best pine-wood comes down the Ottawa and its tributaries.
The other rivers by which timber is brought down to the St.
Lawrence are chiefly the St. Maurice, the Madawaska, and the
Saguenay; but the Ottawa and its tributaries water 75,000 square
miles, whereas the other three rivers, with their tributaries,
water only 53,000. The timber from the Ottawa and St. Maurice
finds its way down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, where, however, it
loses the whole of its picturesque character. The Saguenay and the
Madawaska fall into the St. Lawrence below Quebec.
From Ottawa we went by rail to Prescott, which is surely one of the
most wretched little places to be found in any country.
Immediately opposite to it, on the other side of the St. Lawrence,
is the thriving town of Ogdensburg. But Ogdensburg is in the
United States. Had we been able to learn at Ottawa any facts as to
the hours of the river steamers and railways, we might have saved
time and have avoided Prescott; but this was out of the question.
Had I asked the exact hour at which I might reach Calcutta by the
quickest route, an accurate reply would not have been more out of
the question. I was much struck, at Prescott - and, indeed, all
through Canada, though more in the upper than in the lower
province - by the sturdy roughness, some would call it insolence, of
those of the lower classes of the people with whom I was brought
into contact. If the words "lower classes" give offense to any
reader, I beg to apologize - to apologize, and to assert that I am
one of the last of men to apply such a term in a sense of reproach
to those who earn their bread by the labor of their hands.
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