he site
of a village.

Twelve miles of rowing brought us to St. Ours, where we rested for the
night, after wandering through its shaded and quaint streets. The
village boys and girls came down to see us off the next morning, waving
their kerchiefs, and shouting "_Bon voyage!_" Two miles above the town
we encountered a dam three feet high, which deepened the water on a
shoal above it. We passed through a single lock in company with rafts of
pine logs which were on the way to New York, to be used for spars. A
lockage fee of twenty-five cents for our boat the lock-master told us
would be collected at Chambly Basin. It was a pull of nearly six miles
to St. Denis, where the same scene of comfort and plenty prevailed.
Women were washing clothes in large iron pots at the river's edge, and
the hum of the spinning-wheels issued from the doorways of the
farm-houses. Beehives in the well-stocked gardens were filled with
honey, and the straw-thatched barns had their doors thrown wide open, as
though waiting to receive the harvest. At intervals along the highway,
over the grassy hills, tall, white wooden crosses were erected; for this
people, like the Acadians of old, are very religious. Down the current
floated "pin-flats," a curious scow-like boat, which carries a square
sail, and makes good time only when running before the wind. St. Antoine
and St. Marks were passed, and the isolated peak of St. Hilaire loomed
up grandly twelve hundred feet on the right bank of the Richelieu,
opposite the town of Beloeil. One mile above Beloeil the Grand Trunk
Railroad crosses the stream, and here we passed the night. Strong winds
and rain squalls interrupted our progress. At Chambly Basin we tarried
until the evening of July 16, before entering the canal. Chambly is a
watering-place for Montreal people, who come here to enjoy the fishing,
which is said to be fair.

We had ascended one water-step at St. Ours. Here we had eight steps to
ascend within the distance of one mile. By means of eight locks, each
one hundred and ten feet long by twenty-two wide, the Mayeta was lifted
seventy-five feet and one inch in height to the upper level of the
canal. The lock-masters were courteous, and wished us the usual "_bon
voyage!_" This canal was built thirty-four years prior to my visit. By
ten o'clock P. M. we had passed the last lock, and went into camp in a
depression in the bank of the canal. The journey was resumed at half
past three o'clock the foll