224 



AMERICAN JOURNEY. 



[Chap. V. 



Astartidae : and he met, by appointment, the committee of the 

 Board of Arts and Sciences, to confer with them on Sanitary 

 Reform. As he wanted quiet, to complete his drawings of 

 shells, he stayed with Mr. Higgins at Cote St. Paul, giving 

 lectures in the evenings : and then went to Ottawa by steamer. 



" The first view of the water is very striking. You see a 

 vast extended sheet, covered with little waves, for the wind is 

 blowing cold and fresh from the north-east. There are very 

 few islands, and those rather distant — low rocks covered with 

 beautiful trees. The water is not hemmed in, as the Missis- 

 sippi is, but you look to a distant horizon, interrupted here and 

 there by islands and vessels in full sail. The shores, where 

 you are near enough to see the objects, are studded with neat 

 villages, with church spires ; and (between them) with land all 

 under cultivation, with the trees not too thick to display their 

 individual beauty. It is hard to fancy that such a scene is 

 more than five hundred miles from the ocean. You think it 

 must be an outlet from the sea, or at all events the debouche- 

 ment of a mighty river. This expanse is due to the confluence 

 of the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa ; and in due season you 

 enter the latter river at the rapids of St. Anne : these, and not 

 the Lachine, are the real rapids of the ' Canadian Boat-song.' 

 There is the village, with its pretty farms and pointed spire, all 

 painted white. If you have seen a Normandy village on the 

 banks of the Seine, you have it exactly. You hear the chiming 

 of St. Anne's bell, echoing over the water, faintly making itself 

 heard over the noise of the rapids. You fancy it evening, and 

 the brothers rowing towards the spire, just visible in the short 

 twilight. The simple sweet music of the song is exactly con- 

 genial to the scene : only instead of a river you must fancy a 

 broad lake; for you are just entering the Lake of the Two 

 Mountains, below which the Ottawa is divided into two 

 branches by the island of Montreal." His sail up the Ottawa, 

 with the wonderfully rich and varied colours of the woods, the 

 beauty of the scenery, and the magnificence of the swiftly 

 flowing river, with its delicate tints of burnt sienna, suffused at 

 last with the glories of the sunset, quite enraptured him. 



