when the rafts are being formed in the small tributary streams, and
I would come down upon one of them, shooting the rapids of the
rivers as soon as the first freshets had left the way open. A
freshet in the rivers is the rush of waters occasioned by melting
snow and ice. The first freshets take down the winter waters of
the nearer lakes and rivers. Then the streams become for a time
navigable, and the rafts go down. After that comes the second
freshet, occasioned by the melting of far-off snow and ice up in
the great northern lakes, which are little known. These rafts are
of immense construction, such as those which we have seen on the
Rhone and Rhine, and often contain timber to the value of two,
three, and four thousand pounds. At the rapids the large rafts
are, as it were, unyoked, and divided into small portions, which go
down separately. The excitement and motion of such transit must, I
should say, be very joyous. I was told that the Prince of Wales
desired to go down a rapid on a raft, but that the men in charge
would not undertake to say that there was no possible danger;
whereupon those who accompanied the prince requested his Royal
Highness to forbear. I fear that, in these careful days, crowned
heads and their heirs must often find themselves in the position of
Sancho at the banquet. The sailor prince, who came after his
brother, was allowed to go down a rapid, and got, as I was told,
rather a rough bump as he did so.

Ottawa is a great place for these timber rafts. Indeed, it may, I
think, be called the headquarters of timber for the world. Nearly
all the best pine-wood comes down the Ottawa and its tributaries.
The other rivers by which timber is brought down to the St.
Lawrence are chiefly the St. Maurice, the Madawaska, and the
Saguenay; but the Ottawa and its tributaries water 75,000 square