We saw little in the town of Prescott to interest or please.  After an excellent breakfast we embarked on board the Great Britain, the finest steamer we had yet seen, and here we were joined by our new friends, to our great satisfaction.

At Brockville we arrived just in time to enjoy what was to me quite a novel sight,—­a ship-launch.  A gay and exciting scene it was.  The sun shone brilliantly on a concourse of people that thronged the shore in their holiday attire; the church bells rang merrily out, mingling with the music from the deck of the gaily painted vessel that, with flags and streamers, and a well-dressed company on board, was preparing for the launch.

To give additional effect, a salute was fired from a temporary fort erected for the occasion on a little rocky island in front of the town.  The schooner took the water in fine style, as if eager to embrace the element which was henceforth to be subject to her.  It was a moment of intense interest.  The newly launched was greeted with three cheers from the company on board the Great Britain, with a salute from the little fort, and a merry peal from the bells, which were also rung in honour of a pretty bride that came on board with her bridegroom on their way to visit the falls of Niagara.

Brockville is situated just at the entrance of the lake of the Thousand Islands, and presents a pretty appearance from the water.  The town has improved rapidly, I am told, within the last few years, and is becoming a place of some importance.

The shores of the St. Laurence assume a more rocky and picturesque aspect as you advance among its thousand islands, which present every variety of wood and rock.  The steamer put in for a supply of fire-wood at a little village on the American side the river, where also we took on board five-and-twenty beautiful horses, which are to be exhibited at Cobourg and York for sale.

There was nothing at all worthy of observation in the American village, unless I except a novelty that rather amused me.  Almost every house had a tiny wooden model of itself, about the bigness of a doll’s house, (or baby-house, I think they are called,) stuck up in front of the roof or at the gable end.  I was informed by a gentleman on board, these baby-houses, as I was pleased to call them, were for the swallows to build in.

It was midnight when we passed Kingston, so of course I saw nothing of that “key to the lakes,” as I have heard it styled.  When I awoke in the morning the steamer was dashing gallantly along through the waters of the Ontario, and I experienced a slight sensation of sickness.

When the waters of the lake are at all agitated, as they sometimes are, by high winds, you might imagine yourself upon a tempest-tossed sea.

The shores of the Ontario are very fine, rising in waving lines of hill and dale, clothed with magnificent woods, or enlivened by patches of cultivated land and pretty dwellings.  At ten o’clock we reached Cobourg.