Strangers are told to look at these falls from the suspension
bridge; and it is well that they should do so. But, in so looking
at them, they obtain but a very small part of their effect. On the
Ottawa side of the bridge is a brewery, which brewery is surrounded
by a huge timber-yard. This timber yard I found to be very muddy,
and the passing and repassing through it is a work of trouble; but
nevertheless let the traveler by all means make his way through the
mud, and scramble over the timber, and cross the plank bridges
which traverse the streams of the saw-mills, and thus take himself
to the outer edge of the wood-work over the water. If he will then
seat himself, about the hour of sunset, he will see the Chaudiere
Fall aright.

But the glory of Ottawa will be--and, indeed, already is--the set
of public buildings which is now being erected on the rock which
guards, as it were, the town from the river. How much of the
excellence of these buildings may be due to the taste of Sir Edmund
Head, the late governor, I do not know. That he has greatly
interested himself in the subject, is well known; and, as the style
of the different buildings is so much alike as to make one whole,
though the designs of different architects were selected and these
different architects employed, I imagine that considerable
alterations must have been made in the original drawings. There
are three buildings, forming three sides of a quadrangle; but they
are not joined, the vacant spaces at the corner being of
considerable extent. The fourth side of the quadrangle opens upon
one of the principal streets of the town. The center building is
intended for the Houses of Parliament, and the two side buildings
for the government offices. Of the first Messrs. Fuller and Jones
are the architects, and of the latter Messrs. Stent and Laver. I