The chief settlement of the archipelago is the village of Alexandria Bay on the New York shore, and in the spacious reach of the river in front are the most famous and costly of the island cottages. Here are large hotels and many lodging-places, with a swelling population in the height of the season. Some of the island structures are unique--tall castles, palaces, imitations of iron-clads, forts and turrets--and many have been very costly. As most of the summer residents are Americans, those cottages are chiefly on the American side of the boundary, but there is also quite a group of island cottages over near the Canadian shore adjacent to the village of Gananoque. Alexandria Bay is a diminutive indentation in the New York shore, with a little red lighthouse out in front, while over to the northeast is spread a galaxy of the most famous islands, having fifty or more pretentious cottages scattered about the scene, amid the green foliage surmounting the rocky island foundations. In every direction go off channels among them of sparkling, dancing, green water, giving fine vista views, the dark crags at the water's edge underlying the frame of green foliage bounding the picture. The population has an aquatic flavor, and everybody seems to go about in boats, while the place has the air of a purely pleasure resort, evidently frozen up and hybernating when the tide of summer travel ebbs. In the season, the village presents a nightly carnival with its many-colored lights and dazzling fireworks displays over the rippling waters. For miles below Alexandria Bay, the islands stud the waters, although not so numerous nor so closely together as they are above. The largest of these is the long and narrow Grenadier Island in mid-river. Farther down they are usually small, some being only isolated rocks almost awash. The last of the islands are at Brockville, twenty-five miles below Alexandria Bay--the group of "Three Sisters," one large and two smaller, apparently dropped into the river opposite the town as if intended to support the piers of a bridge over to Morristown on the New York shore. This is an old and quiet Canadian town of nine thousand people, perpetuating the memory of General Sir Isaac Brock, who fell in the battle of Queenston Heights in October, 1812, and which is developing into a summer resort. Such is the charmed archipelago of attractive islands, unlike almost anything else in America, which brings so many pleasure and health seekers to the St. Lawrence to sing its praises: