Our adventures partook of the quiet, household nature of our disasters, sometimes teasing in their occurrence, at others facetious, but rarely of influential effect. Amusement we had none, for the scarcity of game in the forest renders it too troublesome to find, ever to make shooting here a pleasure; now and then, however, a glimpse of native character glimmers out among the settlers, and affords something to talk of for nine days.

Those who were the most eminent for thus supplying topics, the one by his actions, and the other by his talk, were Sam and James Foddie, the worthy, patient husband of the nurse who distinguished herself with the wine my wife sent to Mrs. Paddock. Sam is never out of mischief. There is no sort of experiment which he does not attempt, from tapping the maple trees, of course, at improper times, for juice, to make sugar, even to dyeing the towels in chemical investigations of the plants and substances that he supposes contain colouring matter. Were his discernment equal to his assiduity, he would undoubtedly be, even now, no mean experimental philosopher; but Sam has only an incessant desire to do, and never draws an inference.

James Foddie is a very different personage; he cannot be said to have acquired any renown for industry, and he will rather talk with you for a day about sedate nothings, than work for an hour. In his demeanour he is calm and methodical; no one has ever seen him in a passion, and his words flow in an even, mellow tenour, without emphasis, almost without accent. On one occasion, however, he was a little shaken from his propriety, and the event is still told among us as something almost as miraculous as the water tapped from the rock.