e pleasant high-road hamlet, with two inns, and no
outs, as it is not a place of trade, excepting as far as a small
sawmill is concerned; but this will change, for it is near
Presqu'ile, the only natural harbour on Lake Ontario's Canada shore,
from Toronto to Kingston, or from one end to the other. Here the Bay
of Quinte approaches the lake so close, that a canal of four or five
miles only is requisite, through a natural level, in order to have a
safe and sheltered voyage from Kingston without going at all into the
real and dangerous lake, which is every where beset with "ducks and
drakes," as its rocky and treacherous islets are called.

This canal, which may be constructed easily for about five and twenty
thousand pounds, must soon be made, and the bar of Presqu'ile Harbour
deepened, so as to ensure a shelter for vessels in the furious gales
of October and November.

The canal is always traced on maps, and called Murray Canal, I
presume, after the late Master-General of the Ordnance, during his
government of the province. It is, without doubt, one of the most
important and necessary works in Canada West; and, as it will lead
into the Trent navigation, when that shall be finished, will be the
means of adding some millions of inhabitants to the fairest portion of
the land, now known only to wretched lumbermen.

The River Trent is a large stream, full of shallows, and rapids, and
beautiful lakes, taking its rise north of the township of Somerville,
in the Colborne District, not very far from a chain of lakes, which
reach the Ottawa on the east, and the Black River, a feeder of Lake
Simcoe, and a tributary of Huron and the Severn, on the west.

The river Trent is strangely tortuous, but keeps almost entirely
within the Colborne district, named after Lord Seaton, and at Rice
Lake afforded a site for the Colonial Office to establish a
flourishing colony a few years ago at Peterborough, and to open an
entirely new and very rich portion of Canada West.

This river, placed, as it were, by Nature as the connecting link of a
great chain of inland navigation, embracing the expanse of Huron,
Ontario, and the Ottawa, opens a field of research both to the
agriculturist and the forester. The woods abound with the finest kind
of untouched timber; the land is fertile in the extreme; and the
rivers, streams, and lakes abound with fish. In short, had the Trent
Canal been finished, instead of the miserable and decaying
timber-slides