; as we advance, the
river narrows and becomes studded with little islands covered with wild
shrubs and forest trees, from whose stiff unyielding boughs the more
pliant shoots droop playfully into the foaming stream below, like the
children of Gravity coquetting with the family of Passion. Of course
these islands form rapids in every direction: we soon, approach the one
selected as the channel in which to try our strength. On we dash
boldly--down rushes the stream with a roar of defiance; arrived midway,
a deadly struggle ensues between boiling water and running water; we
tremble in the balance of victory--the rushing waters triumph; we sound
a retreat, which is put in practice with the caution of a Xenophon, and
down we glide into the stiller waters below.

Poke the fires,--pile the coals! Again we dash onwards--again we reach
midway--again the moment of struggle--again the ignominy of
defeat--again the council of war in the stiller waters below. We now
summon all our energies, determined that defeat shall but nerve us to
greater exertion. We go lower down, so as to obtain greater initial
velocity; the fires are made to glow one spotless mass of living heat.
Again the charge is sounded: on we rush, our little boat throbbing from
stem to stern; again the angry waters roar defiance--again the deadly
struggle--again for a moment we tremble in the balance of victory.
Suddenly a universal shout of triumph is heard, and as the joyous cheers
die in echoes through the forest, we are breasting the smoother waters
of the Ottawa above the rapids.

This is all very well on paper, but I assure you it was a time of
intense excitement to us; if in the moment of deadly struggle the tiller
ropes had broken, or the helmsman had made one false turn of the wheel,
we might have got across the boiling rapids, and then good-bye to
sublunary friends; our bones might have been floating past Quebec before
the news of our destruction had reached it.

The Ottawa is by no means the only channel in these parts for conveying
the produce of the lumberer's toil: there are tributaries innumerable,
affording hundreds of miles of raft navigation; so that an almost
indefinite field for their labour is open, and years, if not centuries,
must elapse before the population can increase sufficiently to effect
any very material inroad on these all but inexhaustible forests.

After proceeding a few miles beyond the scene of our late severe
struggle, we reach