ebec, of my illness at Montreal, of all our adventures and
misadventures during our journey up the country, till after much weary
wandering we finally found a home and resting-place with a kind
relative, whom it was our happiness to meet after a separation of many
years.

As my husband was anxious to settle in the neighbourhood of one so
nearly connected with me, thinking it would rob the woods of some of the
loneliness that most women complain so bitterly of, he purchased a lot
of land on the shores of a beautiful lake, one of a chain of small lakes
belonging to the Otanabee river.

Here, then, we are established, having now some five-and-twenty acres
cleared, and a nice house built. Our situation is very agreeable, and
each day increases its value. When we first came up to live in the bush,
with the exception of S------, here were but two or three settlers near
us, and no roads cut out. The only road that was available for bringing
up goods from the nearest town was on the opposite side of the water,
which was obliged to be crossed on a log, or birch-bark canoe; the
former nothing better than a large pine-log hollowed with the axe, so as
to contain three or four persons; it is flat-bottomed, and very narrow,
on which account it is much used on these shallow waters. The birch
canoe is made of sheets of birch bark, ingeniously fashioned and sewn
together by the Indians with the tough roots of the cedar, young pine,
or larch (tamarack, as it is termed by the Indians); it is exceedingly
light, so that it can be carried by two persons easily, or even by one.
These, then, were our ferry-boats, and very frail they are, and require
great nicety in their management; they are worked in the water with
paddles, either kneeling or standing. The squaws are very expert in the
management of the canoes, and preserve their balance with admirable
skill, standing up while they impel the little bark with great velocity
through the water.

Very great is the change that a few years have effected in our
situation. A number of highly respectable settlers have purchased land
along the shores of these lakes, so that we no longer want society. The
roads are now cut several miles above us, and though far from good can
be travelled by waggons and sleighs, and are, at all events, better than
none.

A village has started up where formerly a thick pine-wood covered the
ground; we have now within a short distance of us an excellent saw-mill,
a gr