About sun-set on this, the first evening of our voyage, we reached the island of Perot, situated at the mouth of the Utawas River. This island is about fourteen miles in circumference; its soil is fertile, and it is well cultivated. There are two considerable villages near its center, but towards Point St. Claire, at its lower extremity, the settlements are but very few. We landed at the point, and pitched our tent in a meadow which stood bordering upon the water. Here the bateaux were drawn up, and having been properly secured, the different crews, amounting in all to upwards of fifty men, divided themselves into small parties, and kindled fires along the shore, in order to cook their provisions for the succeeding day, and to keep themselves warm during the night. These men, who are engaged in conducting bateaux in Canada, are, as I have before observed, a very hardy race: when the weather is fair, they sleep on the grass at night, without any other covering than a short blanket, scarcely reaching down to their knees; during wet weather a sail or a blanket to the weather side, spread on poles stuck into the ground in an inclined direction, is all the shelter they deem necessary. On setting out each man is furnished with a certain allowance of salted pork, biscuit, pease, and brandy; the pease and biscuit they boil with some of the pork into porridge, and a large vessel full of it, is generally kept at the head of the bateau, for the use of the crew when they stop in the course of the day. This porridge, or else cold fat salted pork, with cucumbers, constitutes the principal part of their food. The cucumber is a fruit that the lower classes of the French Canadians are extremely fond of; they use it however in a very indifferent state, as they never pull it until it has attained a large size, and is become yellow and seedy. Cucumbers thus mellow, chopped into small pieces without being peeled, and afterwards mixed with sour cream, is one of their favourite dishes.