Rude as was the verse and the music, however, I must own that, in its place on that majestic river, as we were approaching the rapids whose white caps were already leaping about our frail bark, with the meditative light of sunset throwing a mellow radiance over all, there was something that appealed very strongly to the imagination in that simple Canadian air. I am not musical, and cannot recall it; yet even now it will sometimes ring in my ears, when I go back in fancy to that bright season of my life when I too was a _voyageur_; and I have often been happy that accident thus gave me the pleasure of hearing what I shall never hear again, and what travellers on the St Lawrence are every year less and less likely to hear repeated. Indeed, I am almost able to adopt every word which Moore has so poetically appended to his song. “I remember,” says he, “when we entered at sunset upon one of those beautiful lakes into which the St Lawrence so grandly and so unexpectedly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest conceptions of the finest masters have never given me; and now there is not a note of it which does not recall to my memory the dip of our oars in the St Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the rapids, and all the new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during the whole of this very interesting voyage.” But our trip was not all poetry and song. When we were fairly upon those bright-looking rapids, we found our little nutshell quite too heavily loaded, and were forced to feel our evident danger with somewhat of alarm. The billows whirled and tossed us about, till our Canadians themselves became frightened, and foolishly throwing up their oars, began to cross themselves and to call on the Virgin and all the saints. The tutelar of the St Lawrence is said to inhabit hard by, at St Anne’s,—but such was our want of confidence in his power to interfere, that we met this outbreak of Romish devotion with a protest so vehement that it would have surprised the celebrated diet of Spires. Certain it is that, on resuming their oars, the fellows did much more for us than their aspirations had accomplished, when unaided by efforts. We soon began to enjoy the dancing of our batteau, which gradually became less violent, and was rather inspiring. Still, as no one but a coward would sport in safety with dangers which were once sufficient to appal, let me confess that I believe I should be thankful that my journey and my mortal life were not ended together in those dangerous waters. I trust it was not without some inward gratitude to Him who numbers the very hairs of our head, that we found ourselves again in smooth tides, and were soon landed in safety on the quay at Montreal. THE CONQUEST OF NAPLES.[16]