For many years, the only road from Lower Canada was by the St. Lawrence, ascending wearily up the dangerous rapids in canoes and batteaux; and it will be found that the lots in the first townships were surveyed narrow in order to secure a water frontage to as many as possible, because there was no other means of transit than by water. But those who settled in the second concessions, a year or two later, were obliged to tread the length of the long front lots, in order to reach the water. At the same time the communication with Lower Canada, up and down the rapids, was attended with many hazards and inconveniences. It consequently became a matter of no little importance to have a road through the settlements to Montreal, which might be traveled by horse, a King’s highway from the eastern Provincial line. It was, however, some years after the first settlement before this was secured. The original survey for a road was made by one Ponair, assisted by one Kilborne. “The opening” Sherwood says, “of this road from Lower Canada to Brockville and thence to Cataraqui, a distance of 145 miles, was an event long remembered by the pioneers. At the end of each mile was planted a red cedar post with a mark upon it indicating the number of miles from the Provincial line.”—(See First Years of Upper Canada—Construction of Roads). CHAPTER XIII. CONTENTS—Indians traveled by foot or by canoe—Secreting canoes— Primeval scenes—Hunting expeditions—War path—In 1812—Brock—A night at Myers’ Creek—Important arrival—The North West Company—Their canoes—Route—Grand Portage—The Voyageurs—The Batteaux—Size— Ascending the rapids—Lachine—A dry dock—Loyalists by batteaux— Durham boats—Difficulties—In 1788, time from Lachine to Fredericksburgh—Waiting for batteaux—Extracts from a journal, travelling in 1811—From Kingston to Montreal—The expenses—The Schenectady boats—Trade between Albany and Cataraqui—The Durham boat—Duncan—Description of flat-bottomed boat by “Murray”— Statement of Finkle—Trading—Batteaux in 1812—Rate of traveling—The change in fifty years—Time from Albany to Bay Quinté—Instances— Loyalists traveling in winter—Route—Willsbury wilderness—Tarrying at Cornwall—The “French Train”—Traveling along north shore of Ontario—Indian path—Horseback—Individual owners of batteaux—Around Bay Quinté—The last regular batteaux—In 1819—“Lines” from magazine. TRAVELING BY CANOE. Having pointed out the several general routes by which the aborigines and the first Europeans in America, were wont to traverse the country from the seaboard to the far west, and indicated more particularly the smaller paths of the Indians around the Bay Quinté and Lake Ontario, we purpose glancing at the means by which they made their way through the wilderness.