89 



take a look at it, picking out a course and impressing it well upon your 

 memory. At the place you have chosen for your entrance the smooth 

 water runs into the broken in the shape of a V, and you point the bow 

 of the canoe for its apex. Very little steering is required ; the 

 slighte.st turn of the paddle in the swiftly rushing water and the 

 canoe answers the demaid. All is motionless; not a breath is 

 stirring ; you seem to be standing still. But take a glance at the 

 shore. See how the trees and rocks and ground ai'e flying by in one 

 continuous streak. 



And now you have reached the apex. One moment all is steady as 

 a rock ; the next, wild confusion reigns supreme. Currents here ; 

 eddies there ; disorder everywhere. And see! you ai-e rushing right 

 on a Ijoulder you strike ! But no ! A quick turn of the paddle, a 

 long drawn breadth, and it flies by a narrow shave ; but in a rapid a 

 miss is as good as a mile. And now you are in the surges near the 

 foot, the water is boiling and bubbling on every side spray is flying 

 in the air like myriads of diamonds as it glitters in the sunlight ; the 

 roar is sounding in your ea)-s, you feel like a hero, ready to do or dare 

 anything, only tor one moment, the next you are quietly floating up 

 the eddy below, waiting to see your comrades take the run, and feeling 

 that it is over, Init that in the last few moments you have had a life- 

 time of pleasure. 



Passing without difiiculty Timraon's Cnri-enl and the Rocky Farm 

 Rapids, a stretch of ten miles lays between the last mentioned and the 

 Levier Ra[)ids. Certainly at no other season of tlie year could we have 

 made the trip to such advantage from a picturesque point of view. The 

 lianks on either hand were high, rising on the north side to an eleva- 

 tion of between three and four hundred feet. Not a ripple stirred the 

 glassy sheet of water between them. The whole scene represented a 

 most wondrous wealth of colouring. The bright yellow of the poplars, 

 the dark red and green of the scrub oak and tall pine, the bright 

 crimson of the bush maple, the light green of the untouched poplar, 

 the dull lirown of the ground, and slaty grey of the rocks, streaked with 

 the white stems of the silver birch above a blue sky fleeced with white 

 below an almost identical reflection of it presented such a brilliant 

 and many-coloured picture as to be almost bewildering, and yet the whole 

 was blended in such perfect harmony that one could not help crying men- 

 tally, " Oil, nature, where is the artist who can compare unto thee ]" 



Often while paddling along I have striven to remember where I 

 had ever seen any reseml^lance to it, and my mind has gone back to 

 old times in the Wicklow Mountains, where on a bright hazy day almost 

 every shade of blue might be seen, from the darkest slate to the bright- 

 est azure, tinged here and there with pink from the thick growtli of 

 heather; and yet, though I am truly loyal to my native land, and main- 

 tain that Ireland can hold its own with any country in the world for 

 scenery, I am fain to confess that autumn on the Up[)er Ottawa has 

 been a great blow to my pride in that respect. 



