anxious--I believe are still anxious--to put an end to the Ottawa
scheme, and think that there still exists for them a chance of
success. And very many men who are not of mark are thus united,
and a feeling of doubt on the subject has been created. Two
hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds have already been spent on
these buildings, and I have no doubt myself that they will be duly
completed and duly used.

We went up to the new town by boat, taking the course of the River
Ottawa. We passed St. Ann's, but no one at St. Ann's seemed to
know anything of the brothers who were to rest there on their weary
oars. At Maxwellstown I could hear nothing of Annie Laurie or of
her trysting-place on the braes; and the turnpike man at Tara could
tell me nothing of the site of the hall, and had never even heard
of the harp. When I go down South, I shall expect to find that the
negro melodies have not yet reached "Old Virginie." This boat
conveyance from Montreal to Ottawa is not all that could be wished
in convenience, for it is allied too closely with railway
traveling. Those who use it leave Montreal by a railway; after
nine miles, they are changed into a steamboat. Then they encounter
another railway, and at last reach Ottawa in a second steamboat.
But the river is seen, and a better idea of the country is obtained
than can be had solely from the railway cars. The scenery is by no
means grand, nor is it strikingly picturesque, but it is in its way
interesting. For a long portion of the river the old primeval
forests come down close to the water's edge, and in the fall of the
year the brilliant coloring is very lovely. It should not be
imagined, as I think it often is imagined, that these forests are
made up of splendid trees, or that splendid trees are even common.
When timber grows on undrained ground, and when it is uncared for,