This was my case in South Africa.  I had plenty of land, and of all the common necessaries of life; but I lived for years without companionship, for my nearest English neighbour was twenty-five miles off.  I hunted the wild animals of the country, and had plenty of books to read; but, from talking broken Dutch for months together, I almost forgot how to speak my own language correctly.  My very ideas (for I had not entirely lost the reflecting faculty) became confused and limited, for want of intellectual companions to strike out new lights, and form new combinations in the regions of thought; clearly showing that man was not intended to live alone.  Getting, at length, tired of this solitary and unproductive life, I started for England, with the resolution of placing my domestic matters on a more comfortable footing.  By a happy accident, at the house of a literary friend in London, I became acquainted with one to whose cultivated mind, devoted affections, and untiring energy of character, I have been chiefly indebted for many happy hours, under the most adverse circumstances, as well as for much of that hope and firm reliance upon Providence which have enabled me to bear up against overwhelming misfortunes.  I need not here repeat what has been already stated respecting the motives which induced us to emigrate to Canada.  I shall merely observe that when I left South Africa it was with the intention of returning to that colony, where I had a fine property, to which I was attached in no ordinary degree, on account of the beauty of the scenery and delightful climate.  However, Mrs. Moodie, somehow or other, had imbibed an invincible dislike to that colony, for some of the very reasons that I liked it myself.  The wild animals were her terror, and she fancied that every wood and thicket was peopled with elephants, lions, and tigers, and that it would be utterly impossible to take a walk without treading on dangerous snakes in the grass.  Unfortunately, she had my own book on South Africa to quote triumphantly in confirmation of her vague notions of danger; and, in my anxiety to remove these exaggerated impressions, I would fain have retracted my own statements of the hair-breadth escapes I had made, in conflicts with wild animals, respecting which the slightest insinuation of doubt from another party would have excited my utmost indignation.

In truth, before I became familiarised with such danger, I had myself entertained similar notions, and my only wonder, in reading such narratives before leaving my own country, was how the inhabitants of the country managed to attend to their ordinary business in the midst of such accumulated dangers and annoyances.  Fortunately, these hair-breadth escapes are of rare occurrence; but travellers and book-makers, like cooks, have to collect high-flavoured dishes, from far and near, the better to please the palates of their patrons.  So it was with my South African adventures; I threw myself in the way of danger from the love of strong