the trunk, when, terrified with the vicinity of the cascades, to which we were approaching, it put back, notwithstanding my exhortations, in French and English, to induce the two men on board to advance. The bad hold which one man had of the trunk to which we were adhering, subjected him to constant immersion, and, in order to escape his seizing hold of me, I let go the trunk, and in conjunction with another man, got hold of the boom, (which, with the gaff, sails, &c. had been detached from the mast to make room for the cargo,) and floated off. I had just time to grasp this boom, when we were hurried into the cascades; in these I was instantly buried, and nearly suffocated. On rising to the surface, I found one of my hands still on the boom, and my companion still adhering to the gaff. Shortly after descending the cascades, I perceived the barge, bottom upwards, floating near me. I succeeded in getting to it, and held by a crack in one end of it the violence of the water, and the falling out of the casks of ashes, had quite wrecked it. For a long time I contented myself with this hold, not daring to endeavour to get upon the bottom, which I at length effected; and from this my new situation I called out to my companion, who still preserved his hold of the gaff. He shook his head, and when the waves suffered me to look up again, he was gone. He made no attempt to come near me, being unable or unwilling to let go his hold and trust himself to the waves, which were then rolling over his head. The Cascades are a kind of fall, or rapid descent, in the river, over a rocky channel below: going down is called by the French, sauter, to leap or shove the Cascades. For two miles below, the channel continues in uproar just like a storm at sea, and I was frequently nearly washed off the barge by the waves which rolled over. I now entertained no hope whatever of escaping; and although I continued to exert myself to hold on, such was the state to which I was reduced by cold, that I wished only for speedy death, and frequently thought of giving up the contest as useless. I felt as if compressed into the size of a monkey; my hands appeared diminished in size one half, and I certainly should (after I became very cold and much exhausted,) have fallen asleep, but for the waves which were passing over me, and obliged me to attend to my situation. I had never descended the St. Law rence before, but I knew there were more rapids a-head, perhaps another set of the Cascades; but, at all events, the La Chine rapids, whose situation I did not exactly know. I was in hourly expectation of these putting an end to me, and often fancied some points of ice, extending from the shore, to be the head of foaming rapids. At one of the moments in which the succession of waves permitted me to look up, I saw at a distance a canoe with four men, coming towards me, and waited in confidence to hear the sound of their paddles: but in this I was disappointed. The men, as I afterwards learned, were Indians, (genuine descendants of the Tartars,) who, happening to fall in with one of the passenger's trunks, picked up, and returned to shore, for the purpose of pillaging it, leaving, as they since acknowledged, the man on the boat to his fate. Indeed, I am certain I should have had more to fear from their avarice, than to hope from their humanity; and it is more than probable, that my life would have been taken, to secure them in possession of my watch and several half eagles which I had about me. it The accident happened at about eight o'clock in the morning; in the course of some hours, as the day advanced, the sun grew warmer, the wind blew from the south, and the water became calmer. I got upon my knees, and found myself in the small lake St. Louis, about three to five miles wide. With some difficulty I got upon my feet, but was soon_convinced, by cramps and spasms in all my sinews, that I was quite incapable of swimming any distance, and I was then two miles from shore. I was now going, with wind and current, to destruction; and cold, hungry, and fatigued, was obliged again to sit down in the water to rest, when an extraordinary circumstance greatly relieved me. On examining the wreck, to see if it was possible to detach any part of it to steer by, I perceived something loose, entangled in a fork of the wreck, and so carried along. This I found to be a small trunk, bottom upwards, which, with some difficulty, I dragged up upon the barge. After nearly an hour's work, in which I broke my penknife trying to cut out the lock, I made a hole in the top, and, to my great satisfaction, drew out a bottle of rum, a cold tongue, some cheese, and a bag full of bread, cakes, &c. all wet. Of these I made a seasonable though very moderate use, and the trunk answered the purpose of a chair to sit upon, elevated above the surface of the water. After, in vain, endeavouring to steer the wreck, or direct its course to the shore, and having made every signal with my waistcoat, &c. in my power, to the several headlands which I had passed, I fancied I was driving into a bay, which, however, soon proved to be the termination of the lake, and the opening of the river, the current of which was carrying me rapidly along. I passed several small uninhabited islands; but the banks of the river appearing to be covered with houses, I again renewed my signals with my waistcoat, and a shirt which I took out of the trunk, hoping, as the river narrowed, they might be perceived: the distance was too great. The velocity with which I was going, convinced me of my near approach to the dreadful rapids of La Chine. Night was drawing on, my destruction appeared certain, but did not disturb me very much the idea of death had lost its novelty, and become very familiar. Finding signals in vain, I now set up a cry or howl, such as I thought best calculated to carry to a distance, and being favoured with the wind, it did, although at above a mile distance, reach the ears of some people on shore. At last, I perceived a boat rowing towards me, which, being very very small and white bottomed, I had for some time taken for a fowl with a white breast; and I was taken off the barge by Captain Johnstone, after being ten hours on the water. I found myself at the village of La Chine, 21 miles below where the accident happened, and having been driven by the winding of the current a much greater distance. I received no other injury than bruised knees and breast, with a slight cold: the accident took some hold of my imagination, and for seven or eight succeeding nights, in my dreams, I was engaged in the dangers of the Cascades, and surrounded by drowning men. My escape was owing to a concurrence of fortunate circumstances, which appear almost providential. I happened to catch hold of various articles of support, and to exchange each article for another, just at the right time. Nothing but the boom could have carried me down the Cascades without injury, and nothing but the barge could have saved me below them. I was also fortunate in having the whole day; had the accident happened one hour later, I should have arrived opposite the village of La Chine after dark, and of course should have been destroyed in the rapids below, to which I was swiftly advancing. The trunk, which furnished me with provisions and a resting-place above the water, I have every reason to think was necessary to save my life; without it, I must have passed the whole time in the water, and been exhausted with cold and hunger. When the people on shore saw our boat take the wrong channel, they predicted our destruction the floating baggage, by supporting us for a time, enabled them to make an exertion to save us; but, as it was not supposed possible to survive the passage of the Cascades, no further exertions were thought of, nor, indeed, could they well have been made. : It was at this very place that General Ambert's brigade of 300 men, coming to attack Canada, were lost; the French at Montreal received the first intelligence of the invasion, by the dead bodies floating past the town. The pilot, who conducted their first bateau, committing the same error as we did, ran for the wrong channel, and the other bateaux following close, all were involved in the same destruction. The whole party, with which I was, escaped: four left the barge at the Cedar's village, above the rapids, and went to Montreal by land; two more were saved by the canoe. The barge's crew, all accustomed to labour were lost: of the eight men, who passed down the Cascades, none but myself escaped, or were seen again; nor, indeed, was it possible for any one, without my extraor-dinary luck, and the aid of the barge, to which they must have been very close, to have escaped: the other men must have been drowned immediately on entering the Cascades. The trunks, &c. to which they adhered, and the heavy great-coats which they had on, very probably helped to overwhelm them: but they must have gone at all events; swimming in such a current of broken stormy waves was impossible. Still, I think, my knowing how to swim kept me more collected, and rendered me more willing to part with one article of support, to gain a better. Those, who could not swim, naturally clung to whatever hold they first got, and of course many had very bad ones. The captain passed me, above the Cascades, on a sack of woollen clothes, which were doubtless soon saturated and sunk. The trunk which I picked up belonged to a young man from Upper Canada, who was one of those drowned; it contained clothes, and about £70 in gold, which were restored to his friends. My own trunk contained, besides clothes, about £200 in gold and bank notes. On my arrival at La Chine, I offered a reward of 100 dollars, which induced a Canadian to go in search of it. He found it, some days after, on the shore of an island on which it had been driven, and brought it to La Chine, where I happened to be at the time. I paid him his reward and understood that above one third of it was to be immediately applied to the purchase of a certain number of masses, which he had vowed, in the event of success, previous to his setting out on the search. THE RETURN OF SPRING. Now truant spring trips o'er the vale, Wheree'er her dewy footsteps tread, The blithesome lark now trills her song, The songsters leagu'd the woodland's wake, While lovers, proud of mutual love, |