Evening closed in before we reached the tavern on the shores of the Rice Lake, where we were to pass the night; so that I lost something of the beautiful scenery which this fine expanse of water presents as you descend the plains towards its shores.  The glimpses I caught of it were by the faint but frequent flashes of lightning that illumined the horizon to the north, which just revealed enough to make me regret I could see no more that night.  The Rice Lake is prettily diversified with small wooded islets:  the north bank rises gently from the water’s edge.  Within sight of Sully, the tavern from which the steam-boat starts that goes up the Otanabee, you see several well cultivated settlements; and beyond the Indian village the missionaries have a school for the education and instruction of the Indian children.  Many of them can both read and write fluently, and are greatly improved in their moral and religious conduct.  They are well and comfortably clothed, and have houses to live in.  But they are still too much attached to their wandering habits to become good and industrious settlers.  During certain seasons they leave the village, and encamp themselves in the woods along the borders of those lakes and rivers that present the most advantageous hunting and fishing grounds.

The Rice Lake and Mud Lake Indians belong, I am told, to the Chippewas; but the traits of cunning and warlike ferocity that formerly marked this singular people seem to have disappeared beneath the milder influence of Christianity.

Certain it is that the introduction of the Christian religion is the first greatest step towards civilization and improvement; its very tendency being to break down the strong-holds of prejudice and ignorance, and unite mankind in one bond of social brotherhood.  I have been told that for some time drunkenness was unknown, and even the moderate use of spirits was religiously abstained from by all the converts.  This abstinence is still practised by some families; but of late the love of ardent spirits has again crept in among them, bringing discredit upon their faith.  It is indeed hardly to be wondered at, when the Indian sees those around him that call themselves Christians, and who are better educated, and enjoy the advantages of civilized society, indulging to excess in this degrading vice, that he should suffer his natural inclination to overcome his Christian duty, which might in some have taken no deep root.  I have been surprised and disgusted by the censures passed on the erring Indian by persons who were foremost in indulgence at the table and the tavern; as if the crime of drunkenness were more excusable in the man of education than in the half-reclaimed savage.

There are some fine settlements on the Rice Lake, but I am told the shores are not considered healthy, the inhabitants being subject to lake-fevers and ague, especially where the ground is low and swampy.  These fevers and agues are supposed by some people to originate in the extensive rice-beds which cause a stagnation in the water; the constant evaporation from the surface acting on a mass of decaying vegetation must tend to have a bad effect on the constitution of those that are immediately exposed to its pernicious influence.