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lightful fairy-land. He finds himself sometimes enclosed within a narrow channel, shortly discovers openings as of noble rivers, and then seems to be on the bosom of a spacious lake.--Shortly after entering this picturesque scene, sixteen miles from Kingston, is the village of Gananoque, and on emerging from it is BROCKVILLE, one of the prettiest towns in Canada. Most of the houses and public buildings are constructed of limestone, on a bed of which the town is built. In the neighbourhood is granite, but not used from its hardness to be worked and consequent expensiveness. A good road is constructed thence to Perth, which is about forty miles north-west. Opposite the town is a rocky islet, surmounted by a blockhouse, where a few Riflemen are stationed. The population is upwards of" two thousand with two weekly newspapers. It returns a member to the House of Assembly.-Five miles east lies the small village of Maitland, built on the site of an old French fortification. Seven miles below lies PRESCOTT, called after a Lieutenant Governor of that name, and rendered memorable during the late rebellion. Before the opening of the Rideau Canal it was a place of considerable trade. A company of Rifles and a few Artillerymen are stationed here. The population is two thousand A steam-ferry boat plies to the American town of Ogdensburgh, which lies directly opposite. The river is about a mile and a half broad here.-Between Prescott and Dickenson's Landing at the head of the Cornwall Canal, a distance of thirty-eight miles, are in succession the villages of Matilda, Mariatown, Chrysler's, and Moulinette, and in succession, at nearly equal distances of seven or eight miles, are the Galoppes Rapids, the Point Iroquois Rapids, the Rapide Flat Eapids, and the Farren's Point Rapids, in which the current varies from six to ten miles per hour. Canals of a few miles in length have been constructed that trade-vessels may pass. An island shortly obstructs the current, producing what is called the "LONG SAULT” i. e. Long Leap. The stream rushes through a narrow passage on each side, and hurries on the bark with great velocity; and the two currents, meeting at the lower end of the island, dart most furiously against each other, and form what is called the "Big Pitch." To avoid these rapids on the upward passage, Government has constructed, at

a cost of nearly sixty thousand pounds, a magnificent canal, called the Cornwall Canal, which wes opened in 1843. It is eleven-anda-half-miles long, and has seven locks.-The town of CORNWALL is well laid out, and has a pleasant situation. It returns a Member to the House of Assembly, has a population of nearly two thousand, and a newspaper. It is worth the tourist's while to avail himself of the opportunity afforded for going on shore and inspecting the workmanship of the canal. The French inhabitants formerly called this place "Pointe Maline" from the difficulty they experienced in ascending this portion of the river with their bateaux.-Opposite to Cornwall lies the Indian village of ST. REGIS, where line 45° strikes the St. Lawrence, and forms the boundary between Lower Canada and the State of New York, intersecting, also, the tract of land which is the property of this body of Iroquois, numbering in all about one thousand, and about equally British and American. There is a large stone church, which was erected upwards of fifty years ago at their own expense. The Government maintains a French Canadian missionary, who resides permanently at the village, and devotes his whole time to the tribe. A great portion of the service consists of singing, of which the Indians are passionately fond. The men procure a precarious subsistence chiefly by hunting, and the women employ themselves in making mitts and moccassins from the skins of animals that have been killed duriug the winter, and in manufacturing splint baskets and brooms.-After passing the Canal the St. Lawrence widens into one of those beautiful expanses, called Lakes, which tend not a little to impart variety to the course of this majestic river. LAKE ST. FRANCIS is forty miles long. About half way down the lake on the left hand stands the village of Lancaster,close on the boundary line between the West and East Provinces. Here the Loyal Glengary Highlanders raised a large cairn or pile of stone (a memorial occasionally erected for warriors of old in Scotland) in honour of Sir John Colborne, now Lord Seaton, formerly Governor General. THE RAPIDS. At the extremity of the lake commences a succession of very formidable rapids, called the Coteau du Lac, the Cedars or the Split Rock, and the Cascades. The voyage down this sixteen miles' declivity of boiling waters, often presenting,

as it were, sea-waves lashed by tempestuous winds under a burning and unclouded sky, is perhaps as exciting as this or any country offers. The landscape along the shore is in some parts romantic, exhibiting a few villages with handsome churches and parsonages and mills, with an uninterrupted succession of cottages on the water's edge. The excitement is enhanced by a sense of risk accompanying the vessel as she sweeps with the utmost speed close past islands and rocks, whilst her straight course in the channel is maintained by the steady exertions of eight voyageurs at the wheel and rudder. A con、 siderable island, called Grande Isle, lies a little below the east end of the Lake. In order to open up a communication between this Lake and the next expanse, called Lake St. Louis, which is twentyfour miles in length, the Beauharnois Canal has been constructed by Government at a cost of £162,281. It is eleven-and-a-quarter miles long, and has nine locks.-The St. Lawrence, on emerging from the Cascades, receives a great influx of waters from the Ottawa, and their combined waters form the expanse of Lake St. Louis, at the western extremity of which is the considerable island of Isle Perrot, and along the north shore is the Island of Montreal, which is above thirty miles in length. For some distance below the junction the brown waters of the Ottawa roll on unmixed with the clear stream of the St. Lawrence. At the outlet of the Lake on the right is the Iroquois settlement of CAUGHNAWAGA or "The Village of the Rapids," in allusion to those that lie a little below. It was granted for their benefit by Louis XIV. in 1780, and enlarged by Governor Frontenac. These Indians in summer chiefly subsist by navigating barges and rafts down to Montreal, and in winter by the sale of snow-shoes, moccassins, &c. They are Roman Catholics, and have lately rebuilt a handsome and substantial church. They behaved nobly during the recent disturbances, and since that period have received special marks of Her Majesty's favour.-On the left bank stands LACHINE, the central situation of which bids fair to ensure its growth and prosperity. Here is the residence of Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, and of the staff of officers in charge of this, the principal post of the company. Hence emanate the instructions, received from head-quarters in Lon

don, for the different posts throughout the company's extensive terri tories. Towards the latter end of April in each year a body of the company's people along with experienced voyageurs leave this port in large canoes, called maître-canôts, in which their chattels and packages are transported via the Ottawa and a tributary on the left to Lake Nipissing, whence is the descent by the Riviére des Français into Lake Huron. On reaching Fort William on the banks of Lake Superior the large canoes give place to others of a much smaller description, constructed for more convenient transhipment across the numerous portages between the different posts of the company. From Lachine the rail-cars convey the passengers to Montreal, a dis tance of nine miles. During last season the passenger steamers have undertaken the descent of the Fall of St. Louis or the Lachine Rapids, which present features of excitement and interest even exceeding the Upper Rapids, and to obviate which has been constructed the Lachine Canal at an expense of £137,000. This port is situated so as to be the central starting place of the steamers for the Upper St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. It is worthy of remark that this village originally received its appellation from the chimerical idea that hence would be afforded a route to China.

MONTREAL

is situated in Lat. 45° N. and Long. 731 W., thus agreeing exactly with the cities of Lyons and Venice in Europe in the parallel of latitude, and nearly so with the city of New York in longitude. In 1535 Jacques Cartier, whilst surveying with delight the magnifi cent prospect which the brow of the "Mountain" in rear of the modern city commanded, gave to the elevation, in honour of his royal master, the King of France, the name of Mount Royal. About a century afterwards this name, having undergone a not unusual corruption, was imparted to the French settlement which arose about that period to the west of Hochelaga, the ancient In dian village. This city is the Capital of British North America, and the residence of the Governor-General, of the Commander of the Forces, and of the heads of the various Civil and Military Departments connected with the Government.

It seems proper to premise that Lower Canada is divided into five Districts; three superior, Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec ; and two inferior, St. Francis and Gaspé. These are Judicial divisions, having Courts of superior and inferior jurisdiction. The District of Montreal is intersected by the St. Lawrence, and each portion is nearly equal in point of extent, population, and value. The northern portion extends along the Ottawa which forms the boundary between Upper and Lower Canada, till it is bounded by Lake Temiscaming; the southern has for its opposite frontier the northern boundaries of the States of New York and Vermont. The island of Montreal is the largest and most fertile in Canada and is formed by the waters of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence on its northern and southern sides respectively. Its generally level surface is diversified by several gentle ridges called coteaux, while the eminence in rear of the city attains a height of five hundred and fifty feet. Its luxuriant production of the choicest fruits and vegetables has deservedly earned for it the appellation of the "Garden of Canada.” The island, which in conjunction with a few islands around it constitutes the County of Montreal and returns a member to Parliament, is divided into ten parishes; whereof that of the City of Montreal comprises besides the Royalty and the Suburbs the villages of Hochelaga below the city, Cote des Neiges behind the 'Mountain', and St. Henry or the Tanneries,' and the intermediate localities. It is worthy of notice that the intrepid discoverer Cartier for the first time entered Hochelaga, on the 3rd of October, 1535, then a village of Huron Indians, destined, however, to be the nucleus of the modern city of Montreal. On the 15th of August, 1642, the day observed by the Romish Church in honour of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the spot destined for the city was consecrated with due solemnities, commended to the protection of the "Queen of Angels," and named Ville Marie. In 1644 the whole of this valuable island became by royal grant the property of the St. Sulpicians at Paris, whose founder, the Abbé Quelus, landed with authority from the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and before 1657 had cleared and settled a large part of the property. He founded the Seminary of that name in Montreal, and the land of the entire island has been purchased