This lovely spot is now known as Sackville’s Mill-dike. The hand of man has curbed the free course of the wild forest stream, and made it subservient to his will, but could not destroy the natural beauties of the scene. _[FN: This place was originally owned by a man of taste, who resided for some time upon the spot, till finding it convenient to return to his native country, the saw-mill passed into other hands. The old log-house on the green bank above the mill-stream is still standing, though deserted; the garden fence, broken and dilapidated, no longer protects the enclosure, where the wild rose mingles with that of Provence,--the Canadian creeper with the hop.]_
Fearing to entangle themselves in the swamp, they kept the hilly ground, winding their way up to the summit of the lofty ridge of the oak hills, the highest ground they had yet attained; and here it was that the silver waters of the Rice Lake in all its beauty burst upon the eyes of the wondering and delighted travellers. There it lay, a sheet of liquid silver just emerging from the blue veil of mist that hung upon its surface, and concealed its wooded shores on either side. All feeling of dread and doubt and danger was lost, for the time, in one rapturous glow of admiration at a scene so unexpected and so beautiful as that which they now gazed upon from the elevation they had gained. From this ridge they looked down the lake, and the eye could take in an extent of many miles, with its verdant wooded islands, which stole into view one by one as the rays of the morning sun drew up the moving curtain of mist that enveloped them; and soon both northern and southern shores became distinctly visible, with all their bays and capes and swelling oak and pine-crowned hills.
And now arose the question, “Where are we? What lake is this? Can it be the Ontario, or is it the Rice Lake? Can yonder shores be those of the Americans, or are they the hunting-grounds of the dreaded Indians?” Hector remembered having often heard his father say that the Ontario was like an inland sea, and the opposite shores not visible unless in some remarkable state of the atmosphere, when they had been occasionally discerned by the naked eye, while here they could distinctly see objects on the other side, the peculiar growth of the trees, and even flights of wild fowl winging their way among the rice and low bushes on its margin. The breadth of the lake from shore to shore could not, they thought, exceed three or four miles; while its length, in an easterly direction, seemed far greater beyond--what the eye could take in. _[FN: The length of the Rice Lake, from its headwaters near Black’s Landing to the mouth of the Trent, is said to be twenty-five miles; its breadth from north to south varies from three to six.]_