o-case, only more
clumsy; in which, resting on inside rims or battens, are two seats, with
or without backs, generally without, on which, perhaps, a hay-cushion,
or a buffalo-skin, or both, are placed. Two horses, good, bad, or
indifferent, as the case may be, the positive and comparative degrees
being the commonest, drag you along with a clever driver, who can turn
his hand to chopping, carpentering, wheelwright's work, playing the
fiddle, drinking, or any other sort of thing, and is usually an Irishman
or an Irishman's son. For two dollars and a half a day he will drive you
to Melville Island, or Parry's Sound, if you will only stick by him; and
he jogs along, smoking his _dudeen_, over corduroy roads, through mud
holes that would astonish a cockney, and over sand and swamp, rocks and
rough places enough to dislocate every joint in your body, all his own
being anchylosed or used to it, which is the same thing, in the
dictionary.

He will keep you _au courant_, at the same time, tell the name of every
settler and settlement, and some good stories to boot. He is a capital
fellow, is "Paddy the driver," generally a small farmer, and always has
a contract with the commissariat.

The first place of any note we came to, as day broke out of the blue fog
which rose from the swampy forest, was Holland River Bridge, an
extraordinary structure, half bridge, half road, over a swamp created by
that river in times long gone by; a level tract of marsh and wild rice
as far as the eye can reach, full of ducks and deer, with the Holland
River in the midst, winding about like a serpentine canal, and looking
as if it had been fast asleep since its last shake of the ague.

Crossing this bridge-road, now in good order, but in 1837 requiring
great dexterity and agility to pass, you come to a slight elevation of
the land, and a little village in West Gwillimbury, which, I should
think, is a capital place to catch lake-fever in.

The road to it is good, but, after passing it and turning northwards,
is but little improved, being very primitive through the township of
Innisfil. However, we jogged along in mist and rain, on the 29th of
June, and saw the smoke, ay, and smelt it too, of numerous clearings or
forest burnings, indicating settlement, till we reached Wilson's Tavern,
where, every body having the ague, it was somewhat difficult to get
breakfast. This is thirteen miles from St. Alban's.

Having refreshed, however, with such as it w