e inevitable 'pipe'--rowed or sailed; where the current was strong
they {21} kept inshore and pushed slowly along by 'setting' poles,
eight or ten feet long and iron shod; and where the rapids grew too
swift for poling, the crews joined forces on the shore to haul each
bateau in turn by long ropes, while the passengers lent a hand or shot
wild pigeons in the neighbouring woods. At night the whole party
encamped on shore, erecting tents or hanging skins and boughs from
branches of friendly trees. With average weather Kingston could be
reached in seven or eight days; the return journey down-stream was made
in two or three. From Kingston westward the journey was continued in a
sailing schooner, either one of the government gunboats or a private
venture, as far as York, or even to the greater western metropolis,
Queenston on the Niagara river. In good weather thirty or forty hours
sufficed for the lake voyage, but with adverse winds from four to six
days were frequently required.

Thirty years later those to whom time or comfort meant more than money
could make the through journey in one-third the time, though for the
leaner-pursed the more primitive facilities still lingered. For the
summer trip from Quebec to Montreal the steamer had outstripped the
stage-coach. Even with {22} frequent stops to load the fifty or sixty
cords of pine burned on each trip--how many Canadian business men
secured their start in prosperity by supplying wood to steamers on lake
or river!--the steamer commonly made the hundred and eighty miles in
twenty-eight hours. The fares were usually twenty shillings cabin and
five shillings steerage, though the intense rivalry of opposing
companies sometimes brought reckless rate-cutting. In 1829, for
instance, each of the two companies had one boat which carried and
boarded cabin passengers for seven and six-pence, while deck passengers
who found themselves in food were crowded in for a shilling.

From Montreal to Lachine the well-to-do traveller took a stage-coach,
drawn by four spanking greys, leaving Montreal at five in the morning,
for stage-coach hours were early and long. At Lachine he left the
stage for the steamer, at the Cascades he took a stage again, and at
Coteau transferred once more to a steamer for the run to Cornwall.
Shortly after 1830 steamers were put on the river powerful enough to
breast the current as far as Dickenson's Landing, leaving only a
twelve-mile gap to be filled by