"Je cherche, je cherche, là bas, là bas, La ville de Dieu, la merveilleuse; Si je la trouve, quand je serai De mon retour je chante toujours Les gloires de Dieu, les gloires de Dieu." Ontario, Ontario, all hail thou lovely Lake that in thy breast doth hide the many secrets of Niagara! Upon thy waves, soft thrilling joyously with rush of thunderous waters from afar, see, like a gull, the white three-cornered sail dip lightly to the fair breeze from the North! "Là bas, là bas," sang André o'er and o'er, and e'en Pierre bayed long into the West, awoke shrill echoes from the border farms at early dawn, and told his nightly tale to waning summer moons till cliff and shore gave back the sound in echoes manifold. And what of nights within some sheltered cove when storm and darkness claimed both sea and sky? And what of days when furious cross-winds rose, and smote the lake that hissed and writhed and roared beneath the scourge that welted its white breast? Then André crossed himself and told his beads; Pierre crouched low adown within the hull; the dugout rocked safe moored within the cove or, drawn up on a strip of pebbly beach, with softly-grating keel in rhythmic beats told off the lapsing surges till the West translucent 'neath the lifting cloud mass gleamed, and in the sedges near the shore he heard the reed birds whistle plaintively and low. Three moons had waxed and waned since, far away upon the Upper Saguenay, the pools foreshadowed substance of those haunting dreams of glories human eye had never seen--thrice thirty days ere André neared his goal. At last, emerging from the narrow strait of savage Mackinac, he set his sail and voyaged ever southwards day by day with many a tack cajoling every breeze. The white fish leaped within the dugout's wake; the gulls' harsh cry was heard above the mast; at times a passing steamer's paddles throbbed an hour and broke the dead monotony of sea and sky on lonely Michigan. On silent sea, neath silent skies he voyaged, till lo! one silent morn ere rise of sun, the light mists, veiling yet disclosing, crept slow-curling o'er the surface of the Lake to meet the brightening east, and there dissolved in sudden glory, leaving André rapt, with dripping oars suspended and with eyes intent upon a vision marvellous!--The softened radiance of breaking day shone clear, subdued, on dome and tower and arch, on rich facade and many-columned gate of that ethereal Wonder-City white, the fundaments of which in amethyst and chrysopras were seen deep down beneath the surface of the Lake that, motionless, reflected heaven on earth and earth in heaven! And André, gazing so, bared his gray head, the slow tears coursing down his furrowed cheeks, and, folding on his breast his calloused hands, prayed low and fingered o'er his wellworn beads.