In the governor's or chief factor's brigade each voyageur wore a feather in his cap, and if the wind permitted it a British ensign was hoisted on each light canoe. Farewells were soon over. Cheers filled the air from those left behind, and out from Lachine up Lake St. Louis, an enlargement of the St. Lawrence, the brigade of canoes were soon to shoot on their long voyage. No sooner had "le maître" found his cargo afloat, his officers and visitors safely seated, than he gave the cheery word to start, when the men broke out with a "chanson de voyage." Perhaps it was the story of the "Three Fairy Ducks," with its chorus so lively in French, but so prosaic, even in the hands of the poetic McLennan, when translated into English as the "Rolling Ball":-- "Derrière chez nous, il y a un étang (Behind the manor lies the mere), En roulant ma boule. (Chorus.) Trois beaux canards s'en vont baignant. (Three ducks bathe in its waters clear.) En roulant ma boule. Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant, En roulant, ma boule roulant, En roulant ma boule." And now the paddles strike with accustomed dash. The voyageurs are excited with the prospect of the voyage, all scenes of home swim before their eyes, and the chorister leads off with his story of the prince (fils du roi) drawing near the lake, and with his magic gun cruelly sighting the black duck, but killing the white one. With falling voices the swinging men of the canoe relate how from the snow-white drake his "Life blood falls in rubies bright, His diamond eyes have lost their light, His plumes go floating east and west, And form at last a soldier's bed. En roulant ma boule (Sweet refuge for the wanderer's head), En roulant ma boule, Rouli, roulant, ma boule roulant, En roulant ma boule roulant, En roulant ma boule." As the brigade hies on its way, to the right is the purplish brown water of the Ottawa, and on the left the green tinge of the St. Lawrence, till suddenly turning around the western extremity of the Island of Montreal, the boiling waters of the mouth of the Ottawa are before the voyageurs. Since 1816 there has been a canal by which the canoes avoid these rapids, but before that time all men and officers disembarked and the goods were taken by portage around the foaming waters.