Some distance up the lake, and close to its margin, is the farm of Mr. McDonnell, thus forming an exception to the general rule.  His residence is an excessively pretty cottage, commanding a grand panoramic view.  Here we stopped to pay a visit to the energetic old Highlander and his family, and to enjoy his hospitalities.  If he is to be taken as a specimen of the salubrity of the climate, I never saw so healthy a place.  He came here as a lad to push his fortunes, with nothing but a good axe and a stout heart.  He has left fifty summers far behind him; he looks the embodiment of health, and he carries his six feet two inches in a way that might well excite the envy of a model drill-sergeant; and when he took my hand to welcome me, I felt all my little bones scrunching under his iron grasp, as if they were so many bits of pith.

I could not help contrasting the heartiness of his welcome with the two stiff fingers which in highly-civilized life are so often proffered either from pride or indifference; and though he did very nearly make me cry “Enough!” I would a thousand times rather suffer and enjoy his hearty grasp than the cold formality of conventional humbug.  The hardy old pioneer has realized a very comfortable independence, and he told me his only neighbours were a band of his countrymen at the back of the hill, who speak Gaelic exclusively and scarce know a word of English.  They mostly came out with “The Macnab,” but from time to time they are refreshed by arrivals from the Old Country.

Having a long day’s work before us, we were enabled to make but a short stay, so, bidding him and his family a sincere good-bye and good speed, we renewed our journey.  We soon came in sight of the black stumpy monuments of one of the most disastrous conflagrations which ever victimized a forest.  Some idea may be formed of the ravages of the “devouring element,” from the simple fact that it all but totally consumed every stick of timber covering a space of forty-five miles by twenty-five; and the value of what was thus destroyed may be partially estimated, when it is considered that one good raft of timber is worth from three to five thousand pounds.  These rafts, which are seen dotted about the lake in every direction, have a very pretty effect, with their little distinguishing flags floating in the breeze, some from the top of a pole, some from the top of the little shanty in which their hardy navigators live; and a dreary, fatiguing, and dangerous career it must be; but Providence, in his mercy, has so constituted man, that habit grows into a new nature; and these hardy sons of creation sing as merrily, smile as cheerfully, smoke as calmly, and unquestionably sleep as soundly, as any veteran in idleness, though pampered with luxuries, and with a balance at his banker’s which he is at a loss how to squander.