HALL'S _Journey from Canada to the
Cataract of Niagara._

Mr. Hall had travelled from Montreal, in Canada, to Prescott, in a
stage-waggon, which carried the mail; and he says that he can answer for
its being one of the roughest conveyances on either side of the
Atlantic.

The face of the country is invariably flat; and settlements have not,
hitherto, spread far from the banks of the _St. Lawrence_.

_Prescott_ is remarkable for nothing but a square redoubt, or fort,
called Fort Wellington. The accommodations at this place were so bad
that Mr. Hall, at midnight, seated himself in a light waggon, in which
two gentlemen were proceeding to Brockville. These gentlemen afterwards
offered him a passage to Kingston, in a boat belonging to the British
navy, which was waiting for them at _Brockville_.

The banks of the river St. Lawrence, from the neighbourhood of
Brockville, are of limestone, and from twenty to fifty feet in height.
Immense masses of reddish granite are also scattered along the bed of
the stream, and sometimes project from the shore. The numerous islands
which crowd the approach to _Lake Ontario_, have all a granite basis:
they are clothed with cedar and pine-trees, and with an abundance of
raspberry plants. The bed of the _Gananoqua_ is also of granite. This
river is rising into importance, from the circumstance of a new
settlement being formed, under the auspices of the British government,
on the waters with which it communicates.

This settlement lies at the head of the lakes of the _Rideau_, and, in
case of another American war, is meant to secure a communication betwixt
Montreal and Kingston, by way of the Utawa. The settlers are chiefly
disbanded soldiers, who clear and cultivate the land, under the
superintendance of officers of the quarter-master-general's department.
A canal has been cut to avoid the falls of the Rideau; and the
communication, either by the Gananoqua, or Kingston, will be improved by
locks. _Kingston_, which is within the Canadian dominions, is admirably
situated for naval purposes.

The basis of the soil on which this town is situated is limestone,
disposed in horizontal strata. Kingston contains some good houses and
stores; a small theatre, built by the military, for private theatricals;
a large wooden government house, and all the appendages of an extensive
military and naval establishment; with as much society as can
reasonably be expected, in a town but lately created from t