es and bears still in the neighbourhood. One of the latter had
lately seized a pig close to the town. Racoons, porcupines, squirrels
black and grey, and foxes, are still numerous. The hogs have done good
service in destroying the rattlesnakes, which are already becoming rare.
Pigeons, quails, and blackbirds abound. At Rochester, the line of
settled country, in this direction, terminates; for, from this place to
Lewistown, are eighty miles of wilderness.

The traveller, halting on the verge of these aboriginal shades, is
inclined to pause in thought, and to consider the interesting scenes
through which he has been passing. They are such as reason must admire,
for they are the result of industry, temperance, and freedom. Five or
ten, or, at the utmost, twenty years before Mr. Hall was in America,
where there are now corn-fields, towns, and villages, the whole country
was one mass of forest.

Notwithstanding the bad state of the roads, the stage-waggon runs from
Rochester to Lewistown in two days. This journey is so heavy, that it is
sometimes necessary to alight, and walk several miles, or to suffer
almost a dislocation of limbs, in jolting over causeys or logged roads,
formed of pine, or oak-trees, laid crossways. At different intervals,
square patches seem cut out of the forest, in the centre of which low
log-huts have been constructed, without the aid of saw or plane; and are
surrounded by stumps of trees, black with the fires kindled for the
purpose of clearing the land.

_Lewistown_ was one of the frontier villages burnt during the last war,
to retaliate upon the Americans for the destruction of Newark. It has,
however, been since rebuilt, and all the marks of its devastation have
been effaced. It is agreeably situated, at the foot of the limestone
ridge, on the steep bank of the river St. Lawrence, which here rushes,
with a boiling and eddying torrent, from the falls to Lake Ontario.
Lewistown, notwithstanding its infancy, and its remote situation,
contains several good stores.

_Queenston_, on the opposite side of the river, stands in the midst of
corn-fields and farm-houses; a rare and interesting sight in Canada. It
is built on the river's edge, at the foot of the heights. Before the
late war it was embosomed in peach-orchards; but these were all felled,
to aid the operations of the English troops. The heights are still
crowned by a redoubt, and by the remains of batteries, raised to defend
the passage of the