Lachine, the fur traders' Mecca--The departure--The flowing bowl--The canoe brigade--The voyageur's song--"En roulant ma boule"--Village of St. Anne's--Legend of the Church--The sailor's guardian--Origin of "Canadian Boat Song"--A loud invocation--"A la Claire Fontaine"--"Sing, nightingale"--At the rapids--The ominous crosses--"Lament of Cadieux"--A lonely maiden sits--The Wendigo--Home of the Ermatingers--A very old canal--The rugged coast--Fort William reached--A famous gathering--The joyous return. Montreal, to-day the chief city of Canada, was, after the union of the Companies, the centre of the fur trade in the New World. The old Nor'-Wester influence centred on the St. Lawrence, and while the final court of appeal met in London, the forces that gave energy and effect to the decrees of the London Board acted from Montreal. At Lachine, above the rapids, nine miles from the city, lived Governor Simpson, and many retired traders looked upon Lachine as the Mecca of the fur trade. Even before the days of the Lachine Canal, which was built to avoid the rapids, it is said the pushing traders had taken advantage of the little River St. Pierre, which falls into the St. Lawrence, and had made a deep cutting from it up which they dragged their boats to Lachine. To the hardy French voyageurs, accustomed to "portage" their cargoes up steep cliffs, it was no hardship to use the improvised canal and reach Lachine at the head of the rapids. [Illustration: I.--PORTAGE.] [Illustration: II.--DÉCHARGE.] Accordingly, Lachine became the port of departure for the voyageurs on their long journeys up the Ottawa, and on to the distant fur country. Heavy canoes carrying four tons of merchandise were built for the freight, and light canoes, some times manned with ten or twelve men, took the officers at great speed along the route. The canoes were marvels of durability. Made of thin but tough sheets of birch bark, securely gummed along the seams with pitch, they were so strong, and yet so light, that the Indians thought them an object of wonder, and said they were the gift of the Manitou. The voyageurs were a hardy class of men, trained from boyhood to the use of the paddle. Many of them were Iroquois Indians--pure or with an admixture of white blood. But the French Canadians, too, became noted for their expert management of the canoe, and were favourites of Sir George Simpson. Like all sailors, the voyageurs felt the day of their departure a day of fate. Very often they sought to drown their sorrows in the flowing bowl, and it was the trick of the commander to prevent this by keeping the exact time of the departure a secret, filling up the time of the voyageurs with plenty to do and leaving on very short notice. However, as the cargo was well-nigh shipped, wives, daughters, children, and sweethearts too, of the departing canoe men began to linger about the docks, and so were ready to bid their sad farewells.