The transition was like a dream.  The change from the close, rank ship, to large, airy, well-furnished rooms and clean attendants, was a luxury we should have enjoyed had not the dread of cholera involved all things around us in gloom and apprehension.  No one spoke upon the subject; and yet it was evident that it was uppermost in the thoughts of all.  Several emigrants had died of the terrible disorder during the week, beneath the very roof that sheltered us, and its ravages, we were told, had extended up the country as far as Kingston; so that it was still to be the phantom of our coming journey, if we were fortunate enough to escape from its head-quarters.

At six o’clock the following morning, we took our places in the coach for Lachine, and our fears of the plague greatly diminished as we left the spires of Montreal in the distance.  The journey from Montreal westward has been so well described by many gifted pens, that I shall say little about it.  The banks of the St. Lawrence are picturesque and beautiful, particularly in those spots where there is a good view of the American side.  The neat farm-houses looked to me, whose eyes had been so long accustomed to the watery waste, homes of beauty and happiness; and the splendid orchards, the trees at that season of the year being loaded with ripening fruit of all hues, were refreshing and delicious.

My partiality for the apples was regarded by a fellow-traveller with a species of horror.  “Touch them not, if you value your life.”  Every draught of fresh air and water inspired me with renewed health and spirits, and I disregarded the well-meant advice; the gentlemen who gave it had just recovered from the terrible disease.  He was a middle-aged man, a farmer from the Upper Province, Canadian born.  He had visited Montreal on business for the first time.  “Well, sir,” he said, in answer to some questions put to him by my husband respecting the disease, “I can tell you what it is:  a man smitten with the cholera stares death right in the face; and the torment he is suffering is so great that he would gladly die to get rid of it.”

“You were fortunate, C—–­, to escape,” said a backwood settler, who occupied the opposite seat; “many a younger man has died of it.”

“Ay; but I believe I never should have taken it had it not been for some things they gave me for supper at the hotel; oysters, they called them, oysters; they were alive!  I was once persuaded by a friend to eat them, and I liked them well enough at the time.  But I declare to you that I felt them crawling over one another in my stomach all night.  The next morning I was seized with the cholera.”

“Did you swallow them whole, C—–?” said the former spokesman, who seemed highly tickled by the evil doings of the oysters.

“To be sure.  I tell you, the creatures are alive.  You put them on your tongue, and I’ll be bound you’ll be glad to let them slip down as fast as you can.”