up the Ottawa. 105 



The hotels are well kept, and moderate in their charges, and 

 for healthiness in the summer few cities can boast its equal. 

 Its only drawback is the want of water works, which, however, 

 will doubtless soon be supplied. 



The following account of the founding of Ottawa or Bytown 

 is related as a fact : — About the close of the last century, a 

 Mr. Wright, of Boston, having obtained a grant of a large 

 tract of land upon both sides of the river, below the Chaudiere 

 Falls, and deciding that the south-side was unfit for settle- 

 ment, fixed upon what is now called Hull, as the site of a 

 village, which, from the pine lumber floated by him down to 

 Quebec and Montreal, soon became the nucleus of a lum- 

 bering population. As cash was scarce, wages were then 

 paid in either goods, rum, or land. In course of time, having 

 to settle with his teamster, named Sparks, for some ;J200 

 due to him, he prevailed on him, after much grumbhng, to 

 take the hills on the southern side (now Ottawa) in payment, 

 throwing in, in the bargain, a yoke of oxen. Years after- 

 wards, the Canadian authorities wishing to find a channel in 

 the interior for the conveyance of the munitions of war to the 

 Upper Lakes, as the St. Lawrence was too much exposed to 

 the assaults of the Americans, inaugurated the scheme of the 

 Rideau Canal. Mr Sparks, one day in 1823, was much sur- 

 prised at seeing a crowd of engineer officers and soldiers 

 advancing to these sandy blufis, and taking possession of 

 them as the Ordnance property of the British Crown, under 

 an officer named By ; the work progressed, and as the neces- 

 sary shops and shanties were erected on either side the hills, 

 they were called by way of joke upper and lower town ; 

 finally, a bridge was thrown across the Fall connecting Hull 

 or Wrightstown with Bytown, and as the latter slowly grew, 

 the other remained stationary. Money flowed in on Mr. 

 Sparks ; he sold lots, and was eventually reputed worth half 

 a milHon of dollars, and the long despised hills eventually 

 were decided upon by the Queen to sustain the Parliament 



