these matters, the Indians fallow either foes or friends through extensive forests with as much certainty as the fox-hound follows the fox. If they expect to be followed by their friends, they leave certain unequivocal marks behind them. They break the underwood at every step in a particular manner, and notch the trees as they pass along.

If an Indian or Canadian voyageur wishes to make a journey to any particular place, to which there is no known tract;— he goes into the woods without the smallest dread; he makes a straight course, and will, after many days journey, reach his destination, without a compass, through woods that perhaps never before had been trodden by the foot of man. They tell you, that by narrowly observing the trees, they discover cértain marks which indicate to them the points of the compass, even though the sun should be obscured by thick weather. They never lose their presence of mind, as those do who are not accustomed to travelling in the woods. For my part, had I been left alone, after penetrating into the Chaudiere wood a few miles, I doubt

much whether I ever could have found my way out again.

There was an instance, not long ago, of a person belonging to Quebec having lost his party who were going to see the Falls. He was never more heard of. It was supposed that he had wandered in the wood till his strength failed him, and that he had fallen a sacrifice to famine. This idea is confirmed from the circumstance of a human skeleton having since been found in the wood. He was a strong, healthy, young man.

It is very well known in this country (from a number of people having from time to time lost their way in the woods, but who accidentally found it again), that the mind undergoes a wonderful change when you find you have lost all traces of your way. A kind of delirium comes on—perhaps the effect of fear. The person is no longer capable of using his accustomed sagacity, and profiting from his own experience. Objects which might have pointed out to him his way, are passed by unnoticed; he often wanders in a circle while he supposes himself pursuing a straight line. Sometimes, after wandering a whole

day, he finds himself within a short distance from his own house, when he thought himself many miles from it; and vice

versa.

A gentleman lately told me, that he went into the woods in Upper Canada with his gun, in the near neighbourhood of his own house. In pursuing his game he penetrated deeper into the wood than he had been accustomed to do, and finally lost himself. He did not know which way to go; he persevered however, in hopes of getting to some part of the country which he knew; he travelled the whole day without knowing where he was, and without the least appearance of an inhabited country. Overcome with fatigue of body and distraction of mind (for he had left a wife and family at home), he sat down in despair. After sitting some time, he thought he discerned a house through the trees at some distance; he started up,—and made towards it. Conceive his astonishment, his joy-it was his own house: he thought himself at least forty miles from it. In fact, he had been travelling all day in a circle, and often in places which he might have known, had his mind been tranquil, and possessing

its usual powers of discernment; but these had fled, the moment he became alarmed at finding he did not know his way.

I have been told many stories of this kind; and I am the more inclined to believe them from my having once experienced something of the same kind myself, on losing my way, and all traces of a road, upon an immense heath in Portugal. The effect, on that occasion, was more visible on my guide than myself. We had set off pretty early in the morning,-had crossed a mountain, and proceeded several miles on a dreary heath, by tracts known only to the muleteers. It was in the month of November; the day was dark and gloomy, and it had rained violently all the morning. By and by, I found that my muleteer stood firm, and would not advance. I called out to him to know what was the matter; he said, we had lost our way. The rain had for a long while so beat in my face, that I had not paid much attention to the ground we were upon. I trusted to my guide. On now looking around me, I found that there was not the smallest trace of a road. "Oh, my God!" cries the muleteer, "we are lost-we shall perish. Meo Deos! so

mos perdidos, Jesus! Jesus!" He immediately began to cross himself. I knew this to be the dernier resort of a Roman catholic when in despair, and that force alone would now make him exert himself. He would neither advance nor retreat; he seemed to have lost his power of judging and reflecting, as well as his powers of acting. I was determined he should advance, and at length, by threats, and a certain degree of coercion, I roused him to action. We did advance, and finally arrived at a part of the country which was inhabited. I was glad to find that we had wandered but a few miles from our way.-Let us return, however, to the woods in Canada.

Our party had no great difficulty in directing their course to the Chaudiere. Its noise at last announced its proximity. The Chaudiere would in England be considered as a river of considerable magnitude. Its banks at the fall, are highly picturesque; they are very lofty and very steep, yet covered with stately pines of a variety of fantastic shapes. Scrambling along a rock, you approach the brink of the precipice -130 feet perpendicular, where the river throws itself into the abyss below, roaring