"Alles was Du siehst und so wie Du's siehst,-w -was Dir das Liebste, das Schrecklichste, das Peinlichste, das Heimlichste, das Verführerischeste ist, das kehre hervor-”

RAHEL.

It was not till the sixth day of my sojourn at Port Talbot that the good colonel could be persuaded to allow of my departure.

He told me, with good-humoured peremptoriness, that he was the grand autocrat of the forest, and that to presume to order horses, or take any step towards departing, without his express permission, was against "his laws." At last he was so good as to issue his commands-with flattering reluc tance, however that a vehicle should be prepared, and a trusty guide provided; and I bade farewell to this extraordinary man with a mixture of delighted, and grateful, and melancholy feelings not easily to be described, nor ever forgotten.

My next journey was from Port Talbot to Chatham, on the River Thames, whence it was my intention to cross Lake St. Clair to Detroit, and there take my chance of a vessel going up Lake Huron to Michillinachinac. I should, however, advise any future traveller, not limited to any particular time or plan of observation, to take the road along the shore of the lake to Amherstberg and Sandwich, in. stead of turning off to Chatham. During the first day's journey I was promised a good road, as it lay

through the Talbot settlements; what was to become of me the second day seemed a very doubtful matter. The best vehicle which the hospitality and influ. ence of Col. Talbot could provide was a farmer's cart, or team, with two stout horses. The bottom of the cart was well filled with clean soft straw, on which my luggage was deposited. A seat was slung for me on straps, and another in front for the driver, who had been selected from among the most respectable settlers in the neighbourhood as a fit guide and protector for a lone woman. The charge for the two days' journey was to be twelve dollars.

As soon as I had a little recovered from the many thoughts and feelings which came over me as we drove down the path from Col. Talbot's house, I turned to take a survey of my driver, and from his physiognomy, his deportment, and the tone of his voice, to divine, if I could, what chance I had of comfort during the next two days. The survey was, on the whole, encouraging, though presenting some inconsistencies I could by no means reconcile. His dress and figure were remarkably neat, though plain and homely; his broad-brimmed straw hat, encircled with a green ribbon, was pulled over his brow, and from beneath it peered two sparkling, intelligent eyes. His accent was decidedly Irish. It was indeed a brogue as "nate and complate" as ever was sent forth from Cork or Kerry; but then his face was not an Irish face; its expression had nothing of the Irish character; the cut of his features and his manner and figure altogether in no respect harmonized with his voice and accent.

After proceeding about three miles, we stopped in

front of a neat farm-house, surrounded with a garden and spacious outbuildings, and forth came a very pretty and modest-looking young woman, with a lovely child in her arms, and leading another by the hand. It was the wife of my driver; and I must confess she did not seem well pleased to have him taken away from her. They evidently parted with reluctance. She gave him many special charges to take care of himself, and commissions to execute by the way. The children were then held up to be kissed heartily by their father, and we drove off. This little family scene interested me, and augured well, I thought, for my own chances of comfort and protection.

When we had jogged and jolted on at a reasonable pace for some time, and I had felt my way sufficiently, I began to make some inquiries into the position and circumstances of my companion. The first few words explained those discrepancies in his features, voice, and appearance, which had struck

me.

His grandfather was a Frenchman. His father had married an Irishwoman, and settled in consequence in the south of Ireland. He became, after some changes of fortune, a grazier and cattle-dealer ; and having realized a small capital which could not be safely or easily invested in the old country, he had brought out his whole family, and settled his sons on farms in this neighbourhood. Many of the first settlers about this place, generally emigrants of the poorest and lowest description, after clearing a certain portion of the land, gladly disposed of their farms at an advanced price; and thus it is that a

considerable improvement has taken place within these few years by the introduction of settlers of a higher grade, who have purchased half-cleared farms, rather than waste toil and time on the wild land.

My new friend, John B, had a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, for which, with a log-house and barn upon it, he had paid 800 dollars, (about 2007.); he has now one hundred acres of land cleared and laid down in pasture. This is the first instance I have met with in these parts of a grazing farm, the land being almost uniformly arable, and the staple produce of the country, wheat. He told me that he and his brother had applied most advantageously their knowledge of the management and rearing of live stock; he had now thirty cows and eighty sheep. His wife being clever in the dairy, he was enabled to sell a good deal of butter and cheese off his farm, which the neighbourhood of Port Stanley enabled him to ship with advantage. The wolves, he said, were his greatest annoyance ; during the last winter they had carried off eight of his sheep and thirteen of his brother's flock, in spite of all their precautions.

The Canadian wolf is about the size of a mastiff, in colour of a dirty yellowish brown, with a black stripe along his back, and a bushy tail of about a foot in length. His habits are those of the European wolf; they are equally bold, "hungry, and gaunt, and grim," equally destructive, ferocious, and trouble. some to the farmer. The Canadian wolves hunt in packs, and their perpetual howling during the winter nights has often been described to me as frightful.

The reward given by the magistracy for their des truction (six dollars for each wolf's head) is not enough. In the United States the reward is fifteen and twenty dollars a head, and from their new settle. ments the wolves are quickly extirpated. Here, if they would extend the reward to the Indians, it would be of some advantage; for at present they never think it worth while to expend their powder and shot on an animal whose flesh is uneatable, and the skin of little value; and there can be no doubt that it is the interest of the settlers to get rid of the wolves by all and any means. I have never heard of their destroying a man, but they are the terror of the sheepfold-as the wild cats are of the poultry yard. Bears become scarcer in proportion as the country is cleared, but there are still a great number in the vast tracts of forest land which afford them shelter. These, in the severe winters, advance to the borders of the settlements, and carry off the pigs and young cattle. Deer still abound, and venison is common food in the cottages and farmhouses.

My guide concluded his account of himself by an eloquent and heartfelt eulogium on his wife, to whom, as he assured me, "he owed all his peace of mind from the hour he was married!" Few men, I

thought, could say the same. She, at least, is not to be numbered among the drooping and repining women of Upper Canada; but then she has left no family-no home on the other side of the Atlanticall her near relations are settled here in the neighbourhood.

The road continued very tolerable during the greater part of this day, running due west, at a dis