The burning trees were still smouldering; daylight was just creeping up the sky, and some few stars yet out, when we bestirred ourselves, and in a very few minutes we were again afloat: we were now steering towards the south-east, where the Great Manitoolin Island was dimly discerned. There was a deep slumbrous calm all around, as if nature had not yet awoke from her night's rest: then the atmosphere began to kindle with gradual light; it grew brighter and brighter: towards the east, the lake and sky were intermingling in radiance; and _then_, just there, where they seemed flowing and glowing together like a bath of fire, we saw what seemed to us the huge black hull of a vessel, with masts and spars rising against the sky--but we knew not what to think or to believe! As we kept on rowing in that direction, it grew more distinct, but lessened in size: it proved to be a great heavy-built schooner, painted black, which was going up the lake against wind and current. One man was standing in her bows, with an immense oar, which he slowly pulled, walking backwards and forwards; but vain seemed all his toil, for still the vessel lay like a black log, and moved not: we rowed up to the side, and hailed him--"What news?" QUEEN VICTORIA. And the answer was that William the Fourth was dead, and that Queen Victoria reigned in his place! We sat silent looking at each other, and even in that very moment the orb of the sun rose out of the lake, and poured its beams full in our dazzled eyes. We asked if the governor were at the Manitoolin Island? No; he was not there; but the chief officer of the Indian department had come to represent him, and the presents were to be given out to the assembled Indians this morning. We urged the men to take to their oars with spirit, and held our course due east down by the woody shores of this immense island; among fields of reeds and rushes, and almost under the shadow of the towering forests. Meantime, many thoughts came into my mind, some tears too into my eyes--not certainly for that dead king, who in ripe age and in all honour was gathered to the tomb--but for that living queen so young and fair:-- "As many hopes hang on that noble head As there hang blossoms on the boughs in May!" And what will become of _them_--of _her_! The idea that even here, in this new world of woods and waters, amid these remote wilds, to her so utterly unknown, her power reaches and her sovereignty is acknowledged, filled me with compassionate awe. I say _compassionate_, for if she feel in their whole extent the liabilities of her position, alas for her! And if she feel them not!--O worse and worse!