n
eighteen hours, and descend in fourteen hours, including two hours'
stoppages at Sorel and Three Rivers. At six o'clock P. M. we pushed off
into the river, which is about two-thirds of a mile wide at this point,
and commenced our voyage; but fierce gusts of wind arose and drove us to
the shelter of Mr. Hamilton's lumber-yard on the opposite shore, where
we passed the night, sleeping comfortably upon cushions which we spread
on the narrow floor of the boat. Sunday was to be spent in camp; but
when dawn appeared we were not allowed to build a fire on the lumber
pier, and were forced to ascend the St. Lawrence in quest of a retired
spot above the landing of St. Croix, on the right bank of the river. The
tide had been a high one when we beached our boat at the foot of a
bluff. Two hours later the receding tide left us a quarter of a mile
from the current. The river was fully two miles wide at this point, and
so powerful was its current that steamers anchored in it were obliged to
keep their wheels slowly revolving to ease the strain on their anchors.
Early on Monday morning we beheld with consternation that the tide did
not reach our boat, and by dint of hard labor we constructed a railroad
from a neighboring fence, and moved the Mayeta on rollers upon it over
the mud and the projecting reef of rocks some five hundred feet to the
water, then embarking, rowed close along the shore to avoid the current.
A deep fog settled down upon us, and we were driven to camp again on the
left bank, where a cataract tumbled over the rocks fifty or more feet.
Tuesday was a sunny day, but the usual head wind greeted us. The water
would rise along-shore on the flood three hours before the downward
current was checked in the channel of the river. We could not place any
dependence in the regularity of the tides, as strong winds and freshets
in the tributaries influence them. Earlier in the season, as a writer
remarks, "until the upland waters have all run down, and the great
rivers have discharged the freshets caused by thawing of the snows in
the spring of the year, this current, in spite of tides, will always run
down." To the uninitiated the spectacle is a curious one, of the flood
tide rising and swelling the waters of a great river some eight to ten
feet, while the current at the surface is rapidly descending the course
of the stream.

Finding that the wind usually rose and fell with the sun, we now made it
a rule to anchor our boat duri