fell the day through, we thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the shore, stream and atmosphere.
As is usual on a cruise, all hands clamored for dinner early, so we beached on a sodden bank
and hunted for as sheltered a spot as could be found. The boys built a little fire in a hollow
that was rain—soaked and muggy. It was a marvelous feat, but boys seem to have Satan’s own
command of flame, and in a half hour we had a big pot of strong black tea ready for
consumption. It is a strange fact, but I never tasted any tea as good as that the boys make
around a camp fire. The only difficulty about this tea was, where were we to sit while we
drank it? Benedict had appropriated the only stump in the place. He was using it as a butler’s
pantry, carving the large rare roast of beef thereon. Fortunately for us, some weeks previous,
a furious tornado had swept through this region, uprooting gigantic trees and one especially
for our benefit in this very place. We crawled up the horizontal trunk single file, and perched
like a row of monkeys. We ate our dinner in the only dry place available.

After an almost gluttonous meal we re-embarked, covered a stretch of ten miles, then
sighted the tiny village of Bridgeport, at a homely little Dutch Inn, whose host, hostess, fires,
beds and supper were of the best. Altogether, it was good to feel the warmth, dryness and
hospitality of this quaint, old-fashioned hostelry, and to know that, notwithstanding the
merciless rain, we had covered thirty miles, had not caught colds, and were all good friends
yet.

Few people that see this gem river of Ontario know how importantly the name of the
Grand figured in the early treaties between Britain and the Indians. After the war of
independence, when the Iroquois adhered to England and signalized their intention to settle in
her domain, the royal grant of land to "The Six N ations" comprised "the territory lying
within six miles on both sides of the Grand River, from its source up to its mouth, " a tract
that included a larger portion of the present Counties of Wellington and Haldimand. That was
100 years ago; and what have the Six Nations now? A scrap of reserve embracing 53,000
acres of uninteresting timberless and in many places marshy land, while the garden lands of
the river are again in the white man’s possession. To be sure, the Six Nations have deposited
$800,000 with the Dominion Government. It is the sale price of only some of their lands, but
not nearly the value thereof. But although these shores have long been strangers to the
moccasined foot of the red hunter, although many moons have paled and died since these
mighty elms and firs spread their numerous branches above the barken bivouac of that
grandest of all Indian races, the pure old Iroquois, still the river voices, and the restless pine
trees

sing of the lonely years, when all along

[?] they heard the Indian’s hunting song,
And watched his elfish, whispering canoe

F lit like a spirit, as they listened to

The fleeing footsteps of the startled deer
That passed to slake its thirst in waters clear.

And in the midst of this territory the little Dutch village has sprung up; its citizens, stolid,
prosaic, unromantic, are as great a contrast to the erstwhile legend—loving Indians who lived
and hunted and died here, as two nations of two continents could well be.

The second morning brought a sky of turquoise, a genial sun and oh! Blessed fortune,