The disasters we met fortunately required but
little skill in remedying. The sides need only a stout peg, and the
loosened planks that form the bottom being quickly replaced, away you go
again over root, stump, and stone, mud-hole, and corduroy; now against
the trunk of some standing tree, now mounting over some fallen one, with
an impulse that would annihilate any lighter equipage than a Canadian
waggon, which is admirably fitted by its very roughness for such roads
as we have in the bush.

The sagacity of the horses of this country is truly admirable. Their
patience in surmounting the difficulties they have to encounter, their
skill in avoiding the holes and stones, and in making their footing sure
over the round and slippery timbers of the log-bridges, renders them
very valuable. If they want the spirit and fleetness of some of our
high-bred blood-horses, they make up in gentleness, strength, and
patience. This renders them most truly valuable, as they will travel in
such places that no British horse would, with equal safety to their
drivers. Nor are the Canadian horses, when well fed and groomed, at all
deficient in beauty of colour, size, or form. They are not very often
used in logging; the ox is preferred in all rough and heavy labour of
this kind.

Just as the increasing gloom of the forest began to warn us of the
approach of evening, and I was getting weary and hungry, our driver, in
some confusion, avowed his belief that, somehow or other, he had missed
the track, though how, he could not tell, seeing there was but one road.
We were nearly two miles from the last settlement, and he said we ought
to be within sight of the lake if we were on the right road. The only
plan, we agreed, was for him to go forward and leave the team, and
endeavour to ascertain if he were near the water, and if otherwise, to
return to the house we had passed and inquire the way.

After running full half a mile ahead he returned with a dejected
countenance, saying we must be wrong, for he saw no appearance of water,
and the road we were on appeared to end in a cedar swamp, as the farther
he went the thicker the hemlocks and cedars became; so, as we had no
desire to commence our settlement by a night's lodging in a swamp--
where, to use the expression of our driver, the cedars grew as thick as
hairs on a cat's back,--we agreed to retrace our steps.

After some difficulty the lumbering machine was turned, and slowly we
began our back