I left Guelph early in June with Mr. Prior, the Company’s agent at Goderich.  Our road after leaving Springer’s in Blenheim lay through the township of Wilmot to the southern boundary of the Huron tract, and from thence nearly in a straight line to the town of Goderich at the mouth of the river Maitland, on Lake Huron, on our route for a distance of nearly seventy miles, being bounded on the east by the townships of North Easthope, Ellice, Logan, McKillop, Hullett, and the east part of Goderich to the west, by South Easthope, Downie, Fullarton, Hibbert, Tucker Smith, and the west part of Goderich.

This road was a mere sleigh-track through the woods, newly cut out, and rarely exceeding twelve feet in width.  At this time we saw only three log-cabins during the whole way, these being about twenty miles apart from each other.  These three were kept by Dutch or German emigrants, who supplied travellers with whiskey and provisions—­when they had any--which was not always the case.  Indeed, I can testify, to my sorrow, to the uncertainty of finding a decent table provided for guests by these foreigners; for I once had to stop at old Sebach’s, the centre house, for the night, and being tired by a long day’s march through the snow, I had calculated on making a capital supper.  Not that I expected anything better than tea, fried pork and bread and butter, to which, hungry as I was, I should no doubt have done ample justice.  Judge, then, of my astonishment and disappointment, when mine hostess placed before me a piece of dirty-looking Indian meal-bread, and a large cake of beef-tallow, and, to wash down this elegant repast, a dish of crust coffee without either milk or sugar, assuring me at the same time in her broken English, “That she had nothing better in the house till the return of her husband, who had gone fifty miles to the mill and store for a supply of flour, groceries, and other fixings.”

Not being a Russian, I rejected the tallow with disgust, and made but a sorry meal of the other delicacies.

On our route, we crossed several pretty streams, the principal of which are the Avon, then called the Little Thames, the Big Thames, and the Black Water.  The Bayfield does not cross the road, though it makes a bend close to it, and within sight.  I believe I am correct in saying, that we did not cross a single cedar-swamp from the time we entered the Huron tract* till we reached Goderich, a distance of sixty-seven miles.  I consider this block the finest tract of land I ever travelled over in Canada West.

[* “This interesting portion of the Company’s possessions contains a million of acres in one block, within the compass of which a bad farm could scarcely be found.  The soil is a rich black loam, on clay or limestone; and as it is entirely timbered with the best kind of hard wood, no land in the Province is so well adapted for the manufacture of potash, an object of considerable importance to the industrious