“I have already given you some account of our sail down the Rapids. It was extremely pleasant; and although we were becalmed for many hours, we descended on the St. Lawrence in less than two days, a distance which the boatmen seldom reascend in less than nine or ten, even with the occasional assistance of locks at the side of the river. I am surprised we hear so little of this noble river. It is computed, I do not know with what accuracy, to discharge one-half more water than the Mississippi. Its depth between Ogdensburgh and La Chine (130 miles) seldom varies more than three feet in the course of a year; while the Mississippi was falling one foot each day when I ascended it. The St. Lawrence is much clearer than the Mississippi, and its current much more rapid; so rapid, indeed, that the Lake Erie steam-boat, which has been in operation for three years, has not been able to ascend from Black Rock to Lake Erie more than twice without twelve oxen. The banks of the St. Lawrence do not present the rich and beautiful cultivation which adorns the banks of the Mississippi in Louisiana; but if they do not exhibit extensive and highly-dressed plantations of sugar and cotton, or the magnificent forest trees peculiar to the south and west, the prospect is never blackened by a range of miserable slave-cabins, or gangs of negroes working like cattle in the field. I cannot describe to you the pleasure I derived from contrasting the various scenes through which I am passing with each other, they have so many peculiar features, and all so highly interesting. “It is remarkable, that, rising from the same table-land, and so intimately connected by intersecting branches, which occasionally flow into each other during periods of inundation, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence present the most striking contrast in their general features. Many of these are mentioned in the observations I will copy for you from Darby; but others, not much less interesting, might be added. [Illustration: _Montreal, from the St. Lawrence._] [Illustration: _The St. Lawrence at Montreal._]