e to fifteen shillings per gallon at the next bid.

You can have every convenience on board a Lake Ontario mail-packet,
which is about as large as a small frigate, and has the usual sea
equipment of masts, sails, and iron rigging. The fare is five dollars in
the cabin, or about L1 sterling; and two dollars in the steerage. In the
former you have tea and breakfast, in the latter nothing but what is
bought at the bar. By paying a dollar extra you may have a state-room on
deck, or rather on the half-deck, where you find a good bed, a large
looking-glass, washing-stand and towels, and a night-lamp, if required.
The captains are generally part owners, and are kind, obliging, and
communicative, sitting at the head of their table, where places for
females and families are always reserved. The stewards and waiters are
coloured people, clean, neat, and active; and you may give
sevenpence-halfpenny or a quarter-dollar to the man who cleans your
boots, or an attentive waiter, if you like; if not, you can keep it, as
they are well paid.

The ladies' cabin has generally a large cheval glass and a piano, with a
white lady to wait, who is always decked out in flounces and furbelows,
and usually good-looking. All you have got to do on embarking or on
disembarking is to see personally to your luggage; for leaving it to a
servant unacquainted with the country will not do. At Kingston, matters
are pretty well arranged, and the carters are not so very impudent, and
so ready to push you over the wharf; but at Toronto they are very so so,
and want regulating by the police; and in the States, at Buffalo
particularly, the porters and carters are the most presuming and
insolent serviles I ever met with; they rush in a body on board the
boat, and respect neither persons nor things.

I knew an American family composed chiefly of females, travelling to the
Falls; and these ladies had their baggage taken to a train going inland,
whilst they were embarking on board the British boat which was to convey
them to Chippewa in Canada.

The comfort of some of these boats, as they call them, but which ought
to be called ships, is very great. There is a regular drawingroom on
board one called the Chief Justice where I saw, just after the
horticultural show at Toronto, pots of the most rare and beautiful
flowers, arranged very tastefully, with a piano, highly-coloured
nautical paintings and portraits, and a _tout ensemble_, which, when the
lamps were lit,