ravellers convinced him that his hour was come, and
he had jumped out of bed and hidden himself in some inscrutable corner.
But a good supper reconciled every thing.

The author crossed the ice to Montreal, and had a showy view of the
metropolis of the Canadas. A curious observation is suggested by
Montreal, on the different characters of the English and French
population. In the days of Wolf and Amherst, it was all French; but
John Bull, with his spirit of activity and industry, has quietly become
master of all the trading situations of the city, while the French have
as quietly retreated, and spread themselves through the upper sections
of it, to a great degree cut off from its commercial portions.

From Montreal the travel began. The heavy canoes were sent forward some
days before, under the charge of some of the Company's officers, the
light canoes waited for the author, with Colonel Oldfield, chief
engineer in Canada, who was going up the country on a survey of the
navigation, and the Earls of Mulgrave and Caledon, who were going to the
Red River, buffalo-hunting.

All was now ready in form, and on the 4th of May the two canoes were
floating on the Lactrine canal. The crews, thirteen to one vessel, and
fourteen to the other, were partly Canadians, but principally Iroquois.
Those _voyageurs_, as they are called, had each been supplied with a
feather in his cap, in honour of the occasion, and evidently expected to
produce a _sensation_ on shore. But a north-wester blowing prevented the
hoisting of their flags, which mulcted the pageant of much of its
intended glory. These canoes are thirty-five feet in length, and five
feet wide in the centre; drawing about eighteen inches water, and
weighing between three and four hundred pounds; capitally fitted for a
navigation among rocks, rapids, and portages; but they seem most
uncomfortable in rough weather. The waves of the St Lawrence rolled like
a sea, the gale was biting, and the snow drifted heavily in the faces of
the party. In this luckless condition, we are not surprised at the
intelligence, that at St Anne's Rapids, notwithstanding the authority of
the poet, "they sang no evening hymn."

This style of travelling was not certainly much mingled with luxury.
Next morning, after "toiling for six hours," they breakfasted, "with the
wet ground for their table, and with rain in place of milk to cool their
tea." On this day, while running close under the falls of the Ridea