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Brighter days have since dawned upon Canada, and at this time the most discontented can scarcely find the shadow of a grievance to lay hold of.

As an instance of the way in which the utilitarian essentials of a high state of civilisation are diffused throughout Canada, I may mention that when we arrived at Cornwall I was able to telegraph to Kingston for my lost watch, and received a satisfactory answer in half an hour.

After sailing down this mighty river at a rapid rate for some hours, we ran the Galouse Rapids. Running the rapids is a favourite, and, I must add, a charming diversion of adventurous travellers. There is just that slight sense of danger which lends a zest to novelty, and it is furnished by the facts that some timid persons land before coming to the rapids, and that many vessels have come to an untimely end in descending them. There is a favourite story of General Amherst, who during the war was sent down by the river to attack Montreal, with three hundred and fifty men, and the first intimation which the inhabitants received of the intended surprise was through the bodies of the ill-fated detachment, clothed in the well-known scarlet, floating by their city, the victims of the ignorance or treachery of the pilot.

One of the great pleasures which I promised myself in my visit to Canada was from running these rapids, and I was not disappointed. At the Galouse, the river expands into a wide shallow stream, containing beautiful islands, among which the water rushes furiously, being broken into large waves, boiling, foaming, and whirling round. The steamer neared the rapids—half her steam