We remained two days at Prescott; and, on the 3d of September, we embarked for York (now Toronto) on board a small schooner, called the Caledonia. We performed this voyage, which is a distance of 250 miles, in six days. [Illustration: _Brockville—St. Lawrence._] The St. Lawrence, between Prescott and Kingston, presents an aspect the most wild and fanciful. The Lake of the Thousand Isles, which is situated between them, exhibits a delightful combination of the varied scenery of nature. It has all the features of the placid, the picturesque, and the sublime, with a striking inter-mixture of the savage and the uncouth. While slowly gliding up the stream the stranger observes the northern shores thickly settled. The lowly cottage and the large mansion alternately attract his notice. The bustle and activity of life are everywhere visible upon the land; while, upon the lake, all is solemn stillness and solitude. Hundreds of little islands, assuming every variety of form, and covered with stunted trees of almost every species, are spread over the watery expanse, and afford a finished specimen of that peculiar sort of scenery which is produced when the several principles and causes of vegetation are not consentaneous—when the seed is planted by the hand of nature in a sterile soil; and fertilizing rains, morning dews, and fostering breezes, severally contribute their appointed quota of natural assistance, but seem to lose much of their accustomed efficacy by having no suitable objects on which to operate. The rocky and barren soil of these islands invites not the hand of industry to redeem them from their unproductiveness; nor do their unfrequented retreats discover to the beholder even a solitary wigwam. They are the abode of silence, and the resting-place of solitude. The contemplative observer cannot view them without some feelings of regret: while his eye roves with delight over spots of earth disposed into all imaginary shapes, in which matchless beauty and proofs of skilful design are apparent in every direction, his judgment detects the fallacy of his sight; and he laments to find these picturesque creations yielding nothing for supplying the wants of man but such products as serve to gratify his curious vision. Scarcely can he restrain the wish, presumptuous though it be, that Providence in its wisdom had distinguished this portion of the universe by something of greater utility and of more substantial excellence.