I have often heard my mother tell of a trip she made down to the Bay of Quinte, when she was a young girl. She had been on a visit to her brother Jonas Canniff (recently deceased in this city at the age of ninety-two), who had settled on the river Moira, two miles north of the town of Belleville, then a wilderness. There were no steamboats then, and the modes of conveyance both by land and water were slow and tedious. She was sent home by her brother, who engaged two friendly Indians to take her in a bark canoe. The distance to be travelled was over twenty miles, and the morning they started the water in the bay was exceedingly rough. She was placed in the centre of the canoe, on the bottom, while her Indian _voyageurs_ took their place in either end, resting on their knees. They started, and the frail boat danced over the waves like a shell. The stoical yet watchful Indians were alive only to the necessities of their position, and with measured stroke they shot their light bark over the boisterous water. Being a timid girl, and unaccustomed to the water, especially under such circumstances, she was much frightened and never expected to reach her home. There was considerable danger, no doubt, and her fears were not allayed by one of the Indians telling her if she stirred he would break her head with the paddle. The threat may not have been unwise. Their safety depended on perfect control of the boat, and in their light shell a very slight movement might prove disastrous. Her situation was rendered more unpleasant by the splashing of the water, which wet her to the skin. This she had to put up with for hours, while the Indians bravely and skilfully breasted the sea, and at last set her safely on the beach in front of her father's house. When they came to the shore one of the Indians sprang lightly into the water, caught her in his arms and placed her on dry land. This trip was literally burned in her memory, and though she frequently mentioned it, she did so with a shudder, and an expression of thankfulness for her preservation. Of the old people who were living in my boyhood there are few more thoroughly fixed in my memory, with the exception, perhaps, of my grandfathers Canniff and Haight, than Willet and Jane Casey. There were few women better known, or more universally respected, than Aunt Jane. This was the title accorded to her by common consent, and though at that time she had passed the allotted term of three-score years and ten, she was an active woman--a matron among a thousand, a friend of everybody, and everybody's friend. Her house was noted far and wide for its hospitality, and none dispensed it more cordially than Aunt Jane. In those days the people passing to and fro did not hesitate to avail themselves of the comforts this old home afforded. In fact, it was a general stopping place, where both man and beast were refreshed with most cheerful liberality. [Illustration: AUNT JANE, AGE 92]