The day was fine and clear when we started, and we congratulated ourselves on the prospect of a pleasant journey, which, I am sorry to say, was not to be verified. Distant thunder soon warned us that we might expect a storm. We hurried on as fast as possible, in hope we might be able to get through the nine-mile woods, in the township of Clarke, before the bursting of the storm. In this, however, we were disappointed; for, before we were half through the woods, the rain fell in torrents, accompanied by the loudest thunder and most vivid lightning I had ever seen. After above an hour’s most pitiless pelting, we found ourselves suddenly before a small log-house, in front of which, swinging between two upright posts, a cross-bar connecting them at the top, depended a sign, on which was described, in large characters, for the information of all way-worn or thirsty-travellers, “that good liquor, good beds, and good accommodations, both for man and horse, could be had from the proprietor, Thomas Turner Orton.”
Although from the outward appearance of the premises we did not expect the best accommodation, we thought anything better than being exposed longer to the fury of the storm, so giving our horse and waggon to the charge of the ostler, we entered Mr. Orton’s tavern, and demanded to be shown into a private room, which request we found it was out of the power of mine host to comply with, seeing he had only one apartment, which answered the treble purpose of parlour, kitchen, and bar-room. Besides this general apartment there were two small bedrooms on the ground-floor. Luckily for us, a good fire blazed on the ample hearth, its only occupant, in the shape of a guest, being a gentleman from Port Hope, who, like ourselves, had just taken refuge from the storm.
While our clothes were being dried, our hostess prepared dinner, which consisted of a boiled chicken, eggs, and fried ham, which we found excellent, and, as a preventive against catching cold, after the soaking we had got, I ordered some whiskey-punch, which I have always found very efficacious on such occasions. Some people recommend tea made from the boughs of the hemlock-pine, which, I dare say, is excellent for some constitutions; but it never agreed half so well with mine as the former antidote, which I can conscientiously recommend but, like all other medicines, an over-dose may do more harm than good.
Our host, who appeared to make himself quite at home in his own house, joined in the conversation, and being very communicative about his own affairs, wanted us to be equally so about ours. His eccentricity greatly amused us. He informed me that he was by birth a Yorkshireman, and that he had been in business in London, where he had built some fine “place” or “terrace,” which still bore his name. He spouted Latin occasionally, and showed me a Greek lexicon, which he told me was his constant companion. His real stock of Latin and Greek consisted only of a few words and sentences he had picked up, and which he quoted ostentatiously before the ignorant, who of course thought him a prodigy of learning.
As it continued to rain all the evening, I was obliged to give orders to have my horse put up for the night, and also to see what accommodation could be had for ourselves. I found on examination that this was bad enough at least I thought so then, though many a time since I should have been happy to obtain any half as good.
We started early next morning, and reached Cobourg, without any farther adventure, about noon on the same day. We halted there three days. I left my wife with our friends, and took charge of Miss W—— to escort her to her brother’s house.
We left Cobourg for Rice Lake which was distant about twelve or thirteen miles from thence. It was a delightful morning in October; and our road, though very bad, and in some places positively dangerous, where it descended into the deep ravines, was at the same time so picturesque that we were quite delighted with our drive, and particularly so when, emerging from the woods, we entered Hamilton-plains, and beheld in the distance the glittering waters of Rice Lake, and the gem-like islands which adorn its unruffled surface.
Rice Lake, or the Lake of the Burning Plains, as it is called in the Indian language, is a fine sheet of water, twenty-seven miles in length from east to west, varying from two to three and a half miles in width. About six miles from its head on the northern shore it receives the waters of the Otonabee river, which, rising near the head-waters of the Madawaska, flows in nearly a westerly direction, into Balsam Lake, where it takes a more southerly direction, forming in its course a succession of beautiful lakes for upwards of sixty miles. Ten miles above Peterborough, and directly opposite my own farm in the township of Douro, it suddenly contracts its channel and becomes a rapid and impetuous stream. According to a survey ordered by the-government, it was ascertained that from a point on my farm, at the foot of Kawchewahnoonk Lake, and distant from Peterborough nearly ten miles, there is a fall of one hundred and forty-seven feet, affording an unlimited water-power, which has already been extensively applied not only in the town of Peterborough, where several fine flour and saw-mills have been erected, but also in the townships through which it flows.
At Peterborough the rapids cease, from whence the river becomes navigable for steam-boats to the Rice Lake, at the distance of twenty-one miles, which it enters after a course of fully two hundred and fifty miles.
The Indian river takes its rise close to Stony Lake, from which it is only divided by a narrow ridge of granite: this ridge has been cut across at the sole expense of the Hon. Zacheus Burnham and Dr. John Gilchrist, for the purpose of obtaining a larger supply of water for the use of their mills at Warsaw, in Dummer and Keane, in Otonabee, thus connecting the two rivers by this canal. This river flows through the townships of Dummer, Douro, and Otonabee, its whole course not exceeding thirty-five or forty miles, with the exception of a few small streams. No other river of consequence flows into Rice Lake.