THE ST LAWRENCE. 129 



of vegetation sleeping on the surface, and glistening with the 

 fires of the wood-choppers. The moon s shadow in the ripple 

 of the waters was particularly beautiful, and some hours might 

 have been passed pleasantly on deck but for a cold, damp at 

 mosphere. 



The St Lawrence being the first river of magnitude I had 

 sailed on, my preconceptions of its effects on the senses were 

 quickly dispelled; the objects on its level banks being indis 

 tinct and soon lost to the eye. The associations suggested 

 by the endless and ever-varying objects, successively and vi 

 vidly impressed on the mind s eye in passing down a river in 

 Britain, are altogether wanting. Fertility, shelter, health, 

 and peaceful retirement, so dear to a Scottish farmer, and 

 almost invariably the attributes of the streamlets of his 

 country, belong not to the St Lawrence in this part of its 

 course, where the low lying, and in many places reed-growing, 

 margins suggest pestilence and privation. The immensity of 

 fresh water hurrying towards the sea fills the mind with won 

 der. 



Around Cornwall, and more particularly from Coteau-du- 

 Lac to the Cascades, much excellent wheat was growing on 

 clay soil formed into very narrow ridges. Other crops were 

 indifferent, and nearly choked with perennial thistles. From 

 Lachine to Montreal we observed many wild oats (Avena 

 fatud) for the first time in America. 



