k of Leadenhall Market being condensed and
floating? Such, however, was the case; there was a regular travelling
butcher's-shop, for the supply of the settlers around Lake Simcoe; and
meat, clean and enticing as at the finest stall in the market aforesaid,
where upon regular hooks were regularly displayed the fine roasting and
boiling joints of the season. And a very fair speculation no doubt it
is, this pedlar butchery.

On the 3rd of July, at half-past twelve, I left the capital of the
Simcoe district, and am particular as to dates and seasons, because it
tells the traveller for pleasure what are the times and the tides he
should choose.

We embarked on board the good ship Beaver, a large steam-vessel, for the
Holland Landing, distant twenty-eight miles--twenty-one of them by the
lake, and seven by the river. The vessel stops by the way at several
settlements, where half-pay officers generally have pitched their tents;
and twice a week she makes the grand tour of the whole lake, at an
altitude of upwards of seven hundred and fifty feet above Lake Ontario,
and not forty miles from it.

This navigation of the Holland river is very well worth seeing, as it is
a natural canal flowing through a vast marsh, and very narrow, with most
serpentine convolutions, often doubling upon itself.--Conceive the
difficulty of steering a large steamboat in such a course; yet it is
done every day in summer and autumn, by means of long poles, slackening
the steam, backing, &c., though very rarely without running a little way
into the soft mud of the swamp. The motion of the paddles has, however,
in the course of years, widened the channel and prevented the growth of
flags and weeds.

There is one place called the Devil's Elbow, a common name in Canada for
a difficult river pass, where the sluggish water fairly makes a double,
and great care is necessary. Here the enterprising owner and master of
the vessel tried to cut a channel; but, after getting a straight course
through the mud for two-thirds of the way, he found it too expensive to
proceed, but declares that he will persevere. Why does not the Board of
Works, which has literally the expenditure of more than a million, take
the business in hand, and complete it? One or two hundred pounds would
finish the affair. But perhaps it is too trifling, and, like the cut at
the Long Point, Lake Erie, to which we shall come presently, is
overlooked in the magnitude of greater things.

Of al