to people not accustomed to it, the lime that forms a considerable constituent part of the water of this country, acts pretty much in the same manner as would a solution of Glauber’s salts, and often generates dysentery and diarrhoea; and though I have an unbounded veneration for the principles of the Temperance societies, I would, with all deference, recommend, that the pure fluid be drank in very small quantities at first, and even these tempered with the most impalpable infusion possible of Jamaica or Cognac.”

Chapter III.—­What is to be done on landing at Quebec? If you are a rich man, see sights; if you have not money to throw away, do not stay one hour in Quebec, or in any other town, longer than you can possibly avoid, “but get your luggage on board the Montreal steam-boat, and be off if possible in ten minutes after anchor has been let go;—­for by daudling about Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and York, you will spend more money and lose more time, than, if properly employed, might have lodged and fed yourself and family during the first and worst year of your residence in the new world.”  In the choice of land, the writer recommends the Huron tract:—­“It has been objected by some, that this tract of country is out of the world; but no place can be considered in that light, to which a steam-boat can come; and on this continent, if you find a tract of good land, and open it for sale, the world will very soon come to you.  Sixteen years ago, the town of Rochester consisted of a tavern and a blacksmith’s shop—­it is now a town containing upwards of 16,000 inhabitants.  The first time the Huron tract was ever trod by the foot of a white man was in the summer of 1827; next summer a road was commenced, and that winter and in the ensuing spring of 1829, a few individuals made a lodgment:  now it contains upwards of 600 inhabitants, with taverns, shops, stores, grist and saw-mills, and every kind of convenience that a new settler can require; and if the tide of emigration continues to set in as strongly as it has done, in ten years from this date it may be as thickly settled as any part of America.”

Chapter IV.—­Climate of Upper Canada is clever, and of popular interest.

Chapter V. is devoted to Field Sports in Canada, and explains the choice of dogs and guns, and the varieties of game.  It notices the remarkable fact—­that, notwithstanding 15,000 English agricultural labourers have arrived in Canada within the last three years, they no more think of shooting than if they were cockneys, and York, on the banks of a lake, and surrounded by a forest, is positively without anything like a regular supply of fish or game; yet it may be supposed that every twentieth of these men, when at home, was a poacher, or had in his days infringed on the game laws:  “would a total repeal of the game laws produce anything of a similar effect at home?”