Up the Hudson I took the crack steamer _Swallow_, the same which just one year later was sunk while trying to beat her own record of nine hours and two minutes from New York to Albany. She required eleven hours on our trip. Under conditions then obtaining, it took me a day and a half more to reach Lake Ontario. Here, happily, I picked up a frail steam craft, owned by an adventurous soul who was not unwilling to risk his life and that of others on the uncertain and ice-filled waters of Ontario. With him I negotiated to carry me with others down the St. Lawrence. At that time, of course, the Lachine Canal was not completed, and the Victoria Bridge was not even conceived as a possibility. One delay after another with broken machinery, lack of fuel, running ice and what not, required five days more of my time ere I reached Montreal. I could not be called either officer or spy, yet none the less I did not care to be recognized here in the capacity of one over-curious. I made up my costume as that of an innocent free trader from the Western fur country of the states, and was able, from my earlier experiences, to answer any questions as to beaver at Fort Hall or buffalo on the Yellowstone or the Red. Thus I passed freely in and about all the public places of the town, and inspected with a certain personal interest all its points of interest, from the Gray Nunneries to the new cathedrals, the Place d'Armes, the Champ de Mars, the barracks, the vaunted brewery, the historic mountain, and the village lying between the arms of the two rivers--a point where history for a great country had been made, and where history for our own now was planning. As I moved about from day to day, making such acquaintance as I could, I found in the air a feeling of excitement and expectation. The hotels, bad as they were, were packed. The public places were noisy, the private houses crowded. Gradually the town became half-military and half-savage. Persons of importance arrived by steamers up the river, on whose expanse lay boats which might be bound for England--or for some of England's colonies. The Government--not yet removed to Ottawa, later capital of Ontario--was then housed in the old Château Ramezay, built so long before for the French governor, Vaudreuil.