APPARENTLY DENSE POPULATION. 345 



lighthouses with which the St Lawrence has hitherto 

 been provided. It is lighted up from the middle of 

 April till the middle of December. 



I have said that, for a considerable part of my day's 

 journey, until I reached what is called the Portage, I 

 passed through a thickly-peopled country ; and so it 

 really seems to the traveller who drives merely along 

 the high-road, and judges, as one is inclined to do, only 

 from what he sees. To pass house succeeding house, at 

 distances of one or two fields only, for a whole morning, 

 creates the impression of a dense population of small 

 farmers; and although the woods appear to close in 

 behind each small farm at no great distance, yet know- 

 ing that each farmer keeps many acres in wood for 

 his winter's fuel, we naturally conclude that beyond 

 these reserved woods other farms are cleared and culti- 

 vated in numberless Concessions behind. But this is the 

 case as yet only to a small extent ; and the vast area of 

 the still untouched Lower Canadian wilderness, as well 

 as the comparatively small fraction of the surface which 

 has yet been subdued by the hand of man, may be 

 judged of from the following table. The four counties 

 of Bellechasse, I'lslet, Kamouraska, and Rimouski are 

 those through which I passed, on my way from Quebec 

 to Mitis, along the south shore of the St Lawrence. 

 The area of these four counties is represented in square 

 miles and in acres in the first and second columns ; and 

 the extent of each actually surveyed as yet, and laid out 

 in square miles, is indicated by the numbers set down in 

 the third column. 



In the first of these counties, that opposite the Falls 



