We started early next morning, and reached Cobourg, without any farther
adventure, about noon on the same day. We halted there three days. I
left my wife with our friends, and took charge of Miss W----- to escort
her to her brother's house.

We left Cobourg for Rice Lake which was distant about twelve or
thirteen miles from thence. It was a delightful morning in October; and
our road, though very bad, and in some places positively dangerous,
where it descended into the deep ravines, was at the same time so
picturesque that we were quite delighted with our drive, and
particularly so when, emerging from the woods, we entered Hamilton-
plains, and beheld in the distance the glittering waters of Rice Lake,
and the gem-like islands which adorn its unruffled surface.

Rice Lake, or the Lake of the Burning Plains, as it is called in the
Indian language, is a fine sheet of water, twenty-seven miles in length
from east to west, varying from two to three and a half miles in width.
About six miles from its head on the northern shore it receives the
waters of the Otonabee river, which, rising near the head-waters of the
Madawaska, flows in nearly a westerly direction, into Balsam Lake,
where it takes a more southerly direction, forming in its course a
succession of beautiful lakes for upwards of sixty miles. Ten miles
above Peterborough, and directly opposite my own farm in the township
of Douro, it suddenly contracts its channel and becomes a rapid and
impetuous stream. According to a survey ordered by the-government, it
was ascertained that from a point on my farm, at the foot of
Kawchewahnoonk Lake, and distant from Peterborough nearly ten miles,
there is a fall of one hundred and forty-seven feet, affording an
unlimited water-power, which has already been extensively applied not
only in the town of Peterborough, where several fine flour and saw-