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Leaving the Riddarholm Quay, our route lay for the first four hours through the Malar Lake. The weather was delightful, and there was scarcely a ripple on the water. Sloops and wood-boats lay floating upon its glassy surface without perceptible motion. All along on either side beautiful villas peeped from the umbrageous shores and islands.

Brass bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores, and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind. Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis, except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord wood-boats alongside.

Winding through the varied channels of the Neva, under bridges, through narrow passes, among wood-boats, row-boats, and shipping, we at length reach the landing on the Russian Quay, above the Admiralty. Here we disembark, well satisfied to be safely over all the enjoyments and hazards of the evening. Evening, did I say? The morning sun is blazing out in all his glory!

Below this bridge, as far as the eye can reach in the direction of the Gulf of Finland, the glittering waters of the Neva are alive with various kinds of shipping merchant vessels from all parts of the world; fishing smacks from Finland and Riga; lumber vessels from Tornea; wood-boats from the interior; Russian and Prussian steamers; row-boats, skiffs, and fancy colored canoes, with crews and passengers representing many nations of the earth, are in perpetual motion; and while the sight is bewildered by the variety of moving objects, the ears are confounded by the strange medley of languages.

At that time Sunbury included nearly the whole of the province, now it is a very modest little constituency indeed. The origin of the famous "Wood-boats" of the St. John river is revealed in the correspondence of Hazen and White.

You should be on board when they take a couple of those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what has become of that wood. Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after day.

True, much can be done on the icy ways of winter, but then the home work must be minded, and market attended. Another description, called wood-boats, are used for carrying deals and cord-wood, so called from the stick forming the measure of a cord, which is the mode of selling it in the city for fuel. The deals are floated from the saw mills over the shallows, and piled into the boats.

You should be on board when they take a couple of those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what has become of that wood. Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after day.

Standing here, we have a grand coup d'oeil of the river above and below, its bridges covered with moving crowds, its barges and wood-boats, and many-colored bath-houses, glittering in the sun; farther off, a dazzling wilderness of the innumerable churches of the lower city, with their green, yellow, red, and gilded cupolas and domes; still beyond, the trees and shrubberies of the outer boulevards; to the left, the great Foundling Asylum, fronting on the river, with its vast gardens in the rear; to the right, the Military Hospital, the Barracks, and, far in the distance, over the gleaming waters of the river, the Sparrow Hills, from which Napoleon caught the first glimpse of Moscow; and then the grand Convent of the Douskoi, within the outer wall, near the Kalonga Road; from which, sweeping over toward the right, once more we catch a glimpse of the wooded shade of the Race-course, the Hospital of St.