Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 6).djvu/404

 which caused us to make many portages, and so we arrived on the 31st at Kettle falls. The rock which here arrests the course of the Ottawa, extends from shore to shore, and so completely cuts off the waters, that at the time we passed none was seen falling over, but sinking by {356} subterranean channels, or fissures in the rock, it boiled up below, from seven or eight different openings, not unlike water in a huge caldron, whence the first explorers of the country gave it the name of Chaudière or Caldron falls. Mr. P. Wright resided in this place, where he had a fine establishment and a great number of men employed in cultivating the land, and getting out lumber.[228] We left the Chaudières a little before sunset, and passed very soon the confluence of the Rideau or Curtain river. This river, which casts itself into the Ottawa over a rock twenty-five by thirty feet high, is divided in the middle of the fall by a little island, which parts the waters into two white sheets, resembling a double curtain open in the middle and spreading out below. The coup d'œil is really picturesque; the rays of the setting sun, which struck the waters obliquely as we passed, heightened exceedingly their beauty, and rendered it worthy of a pencil more skilful than mine.[229] We voyaged till midnight, when we stopped to {357} let our men take a little repose. This rest was only for two hours. At sunrise on the 1st September, we reached Long-*