is rather a point in our favour, as travelling
becomes less laborious, though still somewhat rough.

I have seen the aurora borealis several times; also a splendid meteoric
phenomenon that surpassed every thing I had ever seen or even heard of
before. I was very much amused by overhearing a young lad giving a
gentleman a description of the appearance made by a cluster of the
shooting-stars as they followed each other in quick succession athwart
the sky. "Sir," said the boy, "I never saw such a sight before, and I
can only liken the chain of stars to a logging-chain." Certainly a most
natural and unique simile, quite in character with the occupation of the
lad, whose business was often with the oxen and logging-chain, and after
all not more rustic than the familiar names given to many of our most
superb constellations,--Charle's wain, the plough, the sickle, &c.

Coming home one night last Christmas from the house of a friend, I was
struck by a splendid pillar of pale greenish light in the west: it rose
to some height above the dark line of pines that crowned the opposite
shores of the Otanabee, and illumined the heavens on either side with a
chaste pure light, such as the moon gives in her rise and setting; it
was not quite pyramidical, though much broader at the base than at its
highest point; it gradually faded, till a faint white glimmering light
alone marked where its place had been, and even that disappeared after
some half-hour's time. It was so fair and lovely a vision I was grieved
when it vanished into thin air, and could have cheated fancy into the
belief that it was the robe of some bright visitor from another and a
better world;--imagination apart, could it be a phosphoric exhalation
from some of our many swamps or inland lakes, or was it at all connected
with the aurora that is so frequently seen in our skies?

I must now close this epistle; I have many letters to prepare for
friends, to whom I can only write when I have the opportunity of free
conveyance, the inland postage being very high; and you must not only
pay for all you receive but all you send to and from New York.

Adieu, my kindest and best of friends.

Douro, May 1st, 1833.

APPENDIX

[The following Communications have been received from the Writer of this
Work during its progress through the Press.]

MAPLE-SUGAR.

THIS spring I have made maple-sugar of a much finer colour and grain
than any I have yet seen; and have been assure