frame houses which then formed the now populous and thriving town of
Peterborough. We crossed the wild, rushing, beautiful Otonabee river by a
rude bridge, and soon found ourselves journeying over the plains or level
heights beyond the village, which were thinly wooded with picturesque
groups of oak and pine, and very much resembled a gentleman's park at
home. Far below, to our right (for we were upon the Smith-town side) we
heard the rushing of the river, whose rapid waters never receive curb from
the iron chain of winter. Even while the rocky banks are coated with ice,
and the frost-king suspends from every twig and branch the most beautiful
and fantastic crystals, the black waters rush foaming along, a thick steam
rising constantly above the rapids, as from a boiling pot. The shores
vibrate and tremble beneath the force of the impetuous flood, as it whirls
round cedar-crowned islands and opposing rocks, and hurries on to pour its
tribute into the Rice Lake, to swell the calm, majestic grandeur of the
Trent, till its waters are lost in the beautiful bay of Quinte, and
finally merged in the blue ocean of Ontario.

The most renowned of our English rivers dwindle into little muddy rills
when compared with the sublimity of the Canadian waters. No language
can adequately express the solemn grandeur of her lake and river scenery;
the glorious islands that float, like visions from fairy land, upon the
bosom of these azure mirrors of her cloudless skies. No dreary breadth
of marshes, covered with flags, hide from our gaze the expanse of
heaven-tinted waters; no foul mud-banks spread their unwholesome
exhalations around. The rocky shores are crowned with the cedar, the
birch, the alder, and soft maple, that dip their long tresses in the pure
stream; from every crevice in the limestone the harebell and Canadian rose
wave their graceful blossoms.

The fiercest droughts of summer may diminish the volume and power of these