anion in the world!--my Friday, in fact. Not
another human being lived within sixty miles of our solitary habitation,
with the exception of the few men at the distant fishery. In front of
us, the mighty Gulf of St. Lawrence stretched out to the horizon, its
swelling bosom unbroken, save by the dipping of a sea-gull or the fin of
a whale. Behind lay the dense forest, stretching back, without a break
in its primeval wildness, across the whole continent of America to the
Pacific Ocean; while above and below lay the rugged mountains that form
the shores of the gulf. As I walked up to the house, and wandered like
a ghost through its empty rooms, I felt inexpressibly melancholy, and
began to have unpleasant anticipations of spending the winter at this
lonely spot.

Just as this thought occurred to me, my dog Humbug bounded into the
room, and, looking with a comical expression up in my face for a moment,
went bounding off again. This incident induced me to take a more
philosophical view of affairs. I began to gaze round upon my domain,
and whisper to myself that I was "monarch of all I surveyed." All the
mighty trees in the wood were mine--if I chose to cut them down; all the
fish in the sea were mine--if I could only catch them; and the palace of
Seven Islands was also mine, The regal feeling inspired by the
consideration of these things induced me to call in a very kingly tone
of voice for my man (he was a French Canadian), who politely answered,
"Oui, monsieur."

"Dinner!" said I, falling back in my throne, and contemplating through
the palace window our vast dominions!

On the following day a small party of Indians arrived, and the bustle of
trading their furs, and asking questions about their expectations of a
good winter hunt, tended to disperse those unpleasant feelings of
loneliness that at first assailed me.

One of these poor Indians had died while travelling, and his relatives
brought the body to be interred in our little burying-ground. The poor
creatures came in a very melancholy mood to ask me for a few planks to
make a coffin for him. They soon constructed a rough wooden box, in
which the corpse was placed, and then buried. No ceremony at tended the
interment of this poor savage; no prayer was uttered over the grave; and
the only mark that the survivors left upon the place was a small wooden
cross, which those Indians who have been visited by Roman Catholic
priests are in the habit of erecting over