_August 20_.--Premising that my three or four months in Canada were
intended, among the rest, as an exploration of the line of the St.
Lawrence, from lake Superior to the sea, (the engineers here insist upon
considering it as one stream, over 2000 miles long, including lakes and
Niagara and all)--that I have only partially carried out my programme;
but for the seven or eight hundred miles so far fulfill'd, I find that
the _Canada question_ is absolutely control'd by this vast water line,
with its first-class features and points of trade, humanity, and
many more--here I am writing this nearly a thousand miles north of my
Philadelphia starting-point (by way of Montreal and Quebec) in the midst
of regions that go to a further extreme of grimness, wildness of
beauty, and a sort of still and pagan _scaredness_, while yet Christian,
inhabitable, and partially fertile, than perhaps any other on earth. The
weather remains perfect; some might call it a little cool, but I wear my
old gray overcoat and find it just right. The days are full of sunbeams
and oxygen. Most of the forenoons and afternoons I am on the forward
deck of the steamer.