e long; bodies thin; and tail lengthy and
straight. I was informed that if one of those animals be wounded, its
screams will draw an immense concourse of its brethren around it, and that
the situation of a person under these circumstances, is by no means void
of danger; as they will not fail to attack him _en masse_. We were once
very nigh getting into a scrape of this description. Driving along through
the forest, we had to pass a tract covered with a thick growth of
brushwood--my friend seeing something stirring among the bushes, drew up,
and taking it for a deer, called out to me to fire--I stood up in the
vehicle, and levelled where I saw the movement, when, lo! out starts a
bristling hog, with a grunt just in time to escape with a whole skin.

One night having been accidently separated from my fellow-traveller, I had
to stay in a miserable-looking hut close to a creek, the habitation of a
backwoodsman. This person's appearance was extremely unprepossessing. The
air of ferocity and wildness which characterized his countenance, added to
his unhealthy, cadaverous aspect, would have been sufficient in any other
country to make one feel unpleasant at passing the night alone under his
roof. He resided in this unhealthy situation, because the land was
extremely fertile; but stated that every fall some one of his family was
ill, and none of them enjoyed good health. Now when we summed up the
consequent loss of labour incident to ill health, the balance of profit
seemed to be greatly against bottom land, and much in favour of the
healthful prairies.

The farmers use, almost exclusively, the sugar of the maple (_acer
saccharinum_) which they manufacture themselves. The space in which a
number of these trees are found, they call a "sugar camp." The process of
manufacturing is as follows:--After the first frost, the trees are tapped,
by perforating the trunk in an ascending direction. A spout of alder is
inserted in the perforation, and the sap drips through this conduit into a
trough of wood. The sap is then boiled with a spoonful of slacked lime,
the white of an egg or two, and about a pint of milk, to every fifteen
gallons. An ordinary tree commonly gives four pounds of good coarse brown
sugar, which when refined can be made equal to superior lump sugar.

A great portion of the roads through which we passed were mere horse
paths, full of stumps, with shrubs entangled across them so thickly, that
we were often obliged to di