If the party was a distinguished one there was often a priest included, and he, as soon as the brigade was fairly off and the party had settled down to the motion, reverently removing his hat, sounded forth a loud invocation to the Deity and to a long train of male and female saints, in a loud and full voice, while all the men at the end of each versicle made response, "Qu'il me bénisse." This done, he called for a song. None of the many songs of France would be more likely at this stage than the favourite and most beloved of all French Canadian songs, "A la Claire Fontaine." The leader in solo would ring out the verse-- "A la claire fontaine, M'en allent promener, J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle, Que je m'y sois baigné." ("Unto the crystal fountain, For pleasure did I stray; So fair I found the waters, My limbs in them I lay.") Then in full chorus all would unite, followed verse by verse. Most touching of all would be the address to the nightingale-- "Chantez, rossignol, chantez, Toi qui as le coeur gai; Tu as le coeur à rire, Moi, je l'ai à pleurer." ("Sing, nightingale, keep singing, Thou hast a heart so gay; Thou hast a heart so merry, While mine is sorrow's prey.") The most beautiful of all, the chorus, is again repeated, and is, as translated by Lighthall:-- "Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway, My dearest; Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway." The brigade swept on up the Lake of Two Mountains, and though the work was hard, yet the spirit and exhilaration of the way kept up the hearts of the voyageurs and officers, and as one song was ended, another was begun and carried through. Now it was the rollicking chanson, "C'est la Belle Françoise," then the tender "La Violette Dandine," and when inspiration was needed, that song of perennial interest, "Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre." A distance up the Ottawa, however, the scenery changes, and the river is interrupted by three embarrassing rapids. At Carillon, opposite to which was Port Fortune, a great resort for retired fur traders, the labours began, and so these rapids, Carillon, Long Sault, and Chute au Blondeau, now avoided by canals, were in the old days passed by portage with infinite toil. Up the river to the great Chaudière, where the City of Ottawa now stands, they cheerfully rowed, and after another great portage the Upper Ottawa was faced.