passed us; and
in the evening we reached Fort Mattawan, one of the Company's stations.
At night we encamped along with a party who were taking provisions to
the wood-cutters.

The scenery on the Ottawa is beautiful, and as we descended the stream
it was rendered more picturesque and interesting by the appearance,
occasionally, of that, to us, unusual sight, a farmhouse. They were too
few and far between, however, to permit of our taking advantage of the
inhabitants' hospitality, and for the next four days we continued to
make our encampments in the woods as heretofore. At one of these
frontier farms our worthy guide discovered, to his unutterable
astonishment and delight, an old friend and fellow-voyageur, to greet
whom he put ashore. The meeting was strange: instead of shaking hands
warmly, as I had expected, they stood for a moment gazing in
astonishment, and then, with perfect solemnity, kissed each other--not
gently on the cheek, but with a good hearty smack on their sunburnt
lips. After conversing for a little, they parted with another kiss.

On the fourth day after this event we came in sight of the village of
Aylmer, which lay calmly on the sloping banks of the river, its church
spire glittering in the sun, and its white houses reflected in the
stream.

It is difficult to express the feelings of delight with which I gazed
upon this little village, after my long banishment from the civilised
world. It was like recovering from a trance of four long dreamy years;
and I wandered about the streets, gazing in joy and admiration upon
everything and everybody, but especially upon the ladies, who appeared
quite a strange race of beings to me--and all of them looked so
beautiful in my eyes (long accustomed to Indian dames), that I fell in
love with every one individually that passed me in the village. In this
happy mood I sauntered about, utterly oblivious of the fact that my men
had been left in a public-house, and would infallibly, if not prevented,
get dead drunk. I was soon awakened to this startling probability by
the guide, who walked up the road in a very solemn I'm-not-at-all-drunk
sort of a manner, peering about on every side, evidently in search of
me. Having found me, he burst into an expression of unbounded joy; and
then, recollecting that this was inconsistent with his assumed character
of sobriety, became awfully grave, and told me that we must start soon,
as the men were all getting tipsy.

The