32 But some of the larger islands would form de- lightful little farms; and the energies of a future people may perhaps bring them under cultiva- tion, and embellish them with all the beauties that'arts and agriculture can communicate. When this takes place, the scene will realize all that fairy loveliness in which eastern historians have delighted to robe the objects of the material world. The scene reminded me of the beautiful de- scription of the Happy Islands in the Vision of Mirzah, and I thought at the time, that if the Thousand Islands lay in the East, some chaste imagination would propose, that they should be made an asylum for suffering humanity, and dis- tributed according to the respective virtues and merits of those who deserved them. The current between some of the islands is so rapid, that the boatmen, with all their exertions, can scarcely make way against it. There are par- ticular channels with which the Canadians are well acquainted, and which they invariably fol- low, for if they ventured upon others, they would soon be bewildered among the islands, and might probably continue in search of the true course during many days, as has several times been the case. _ Shortly after sunset we landed upon a small island, and the Canadians having moored their 6