374 PEAIRIE AND FOREST. 



of Japan, the broad and placid waters of the Hudson 

 at the Highlands, the palm-clad islands of the Indian 

 Archipelago, the azure seas and skies of the Mediter- 

 ranean rise before me, beautiful and perfect as they 

 are, they cannot compare with the giant river of 

 Canada and its surrounding landscape, because it is 

 without a fault perfection verified. 



Strong and enduring are the thews of our boatmen, 

 tough but pliant the ash oars, and although each stroke 

 they are bent like hoops, still our progress over the 

 rippling, glancing, eddying water is slow. But delay 

 matters not here, in fact it is rather pleasing, for it 

 affords the spectator time to gaze, aye, inhale the 

 manifold beauties that surround him ; look to the left 

 at that feathery birch, how playfully and daintily its 

 long, graceful, floating limbs tap, tap, tap upon the 

 rapid's surface. Another rival in attractiveness grows 

 close by ; it is the wood grape with its long tendrils, 

 floating in every breath of air, but treacherously 

 longing to lay hold of the tree that now she only fans 

 with her passing touch. And the red maple and yellow 

 maple and scarlet sumach crowd together, rivals for the 

 palm of precedence in gaudiness of hues ; while behind 

 them, in calm dignity, towers the giant pine, looking 

 down with unbending dignity upon its minor sur- 

 rounding brethren; the motion of these Canadian 

 waters itself is joyous, and every dip and plunge and 

 jump of the birch-bark canoe seem to be its ebullition 

 of excessive animal spirits. 



But, unconsciously, we have glided out of the swift 

 current into eddying back currents, our spoon bait 

 trails thirty odd yards behind; in fact, it has been 

 for some time forgotten, for admiration and thought 



