[Footnote 8: As boats of the Chrysalid model have prominent keels, and stern-posts that are merely ornamental, they cannot be beached by a gentle tug at the painter, such as is always sufficient with a Red-Lake boat.] IX. AREAS OF RAIN. Sleep was sedulously courted this morning by the entire squadron, for not only did the late hours and social dissipations of the preceding night have a soporific effect, but a steady rain had set in during the small hours, and not even the Cook felt any disposition to arise and shine. The tent was rather close quarters for four, so the Commodore had slept in his canoe, and for him rising meant stepping out of a dry nest into a steady down-pour. After a while, however, voices began to issue from the tent and a desire for breakfast soon asserted itself. As the camp was in the outskirts of a town, no wood was to be had save through purchase, so the Rob-Roy cuisine was resorted to with eminent success, and a wandering small boy who spoke nothing but Kanuck of the most rudimentary description, was persuaded to fill an order from the maternal larder. Breakfast was at last finished, and numerous pipes were smoked to kill time until the rain should cease, but still it poured down with such steady persistency, that it had its effect even upon the buoyant spirits of the quartette. The sole objects of interest which presented themselves were boats laden with hay which drove past the tent-door down the river before the wind. These the Commodore sketched with the adjoining result, and then relapsing into a state of demoralization was maliciously portrayed by the artist on page 147. At length the showers became intermittent, and the two division commanders sallied forth in different directions to collate information regarding the rapids. [Illustration: Aristocratic.] [Illustration: Plebeian.] "One charm of the character of your true rural," remarked the Commodore, on their return to compare notes, "is that he is unconventional. When you have learned the opinions of one, upon matters about him, you are not justified in accepting them as those of the community at large." [Illustration: The Commodore Weather Bound.] "Very true," said the Vice. "I have spent two hours in interviewing the honest villagers near the waterside, to ascertain if the rapids, which begin a short half mile below, are passable, and from no two of them did I get the same reply. One said yes, another said no, a third looked doubtful, a fourth encouraging, number five was dumb, and from a dozen or two others I obtained enough of shrugs, gestures, and facial contortions to supply the clown of a pantomime. So little recks your true rural of what doesn't particularly concern him that one fellow, who works in a flour-mill, informed me that there were no rapids whatever, any where in the river."