vessel in crossing the Atlantic had said, he was not a
little nervous at going down them, I thought I might be so too. We had
first, however, to go through the Thousand Islands, which sounds very
romantic, but turned out rather a failure. There are in reality about
1,400 of these islands, where the river St. Lawrence issues from Lake
Ontario. The morning was unpropitious, it being very rainy, and this, no
doubt, helped to give them a dismal appearance. They are of all forms
and sizes, some three miles long, and some hardly appearing above the
water. The disappointment to us was their flatness, and their all being
alike in their general aspect, being covered with light wood. When this
is lit up by the sun, they are probably very pretty, as we experienced
later in the day, which turned out to be a most brilliant one. The
islands are generally uninhabited, except by wild ducks, deer, foxes,
raccoons, squirrels, musk-rats, and minxes, and also by partridges in
abundance. We have tasted the wild duck, which is very good.

About one o'clock in the day we lost sight of the islands, except a few,
which occasionally are scattered along the river; we had no longer
however to thread our way among them, as we had done earlier in the day.
Dinner was at two, but we were not much disposed to go down, for we had
just passed one rapid, and were coming to the finest of all, the Cedars;
but they turned out to be by no means alarming to an unpractised eye.
The water is much disturbed, and full of small crests of waves. There
were four men at the wheel, besides four at the tiller, and they had no
doubt to keep a sharp look out; we stood on deck, and received a good
sea in our faces, and were much excited by the scene. The longest rapid
occupied us about twenty minutes, being nine miles long. It is called
the Long Sault. The banks on either side continued flat; we stopped
occasionally at pretty little villages to take in passengers or wood,
but these stoppages told much against our progress, and the days now
being short, we were informed that the vessel could not reach Montreal
that night. There is a rapid a few miles above Montreal, which is the
most dangerous of them all, and cannot be passed in the dark. The boat,
therefore, stopped at La Chine for the night, and we had our choice of
sleeping on board or landing and taking the train for eight miles to
Montreal; and as we had seen all the rest of the rapids, and did not
feel much disposed f