During the spring and
summer months, these men spread themselves through the trackless forests,
and along the shores of nameless lakes and unknown streams, to cut the pine
or oak lumber, such being the name they give to the felled stems of trees,
which are then hewn, and in the winter dragged out upon the ice, where they
are formed into rafts, and floated down the waters till they reach the
great St. Lawrence, and are, after innumerable difficulties and casualties,
finally shipped for England. I have likewise known European gentlemen
voluntarily leave the comforts of a civilized home, and associate
themselves with the Indian trappers and hunters, leading lives as wandering
and as wild as the uncultivated children of the forest. The nights and
early mornings were already growing sensibly more chilly. The dews at this
season fall heavily, and the mists fill the valleys, till the sun has risen
with sufficient heat to draw up the vapours. It was a good thing that the
shanty was finished so soon, or the exposure to the damp air might have
been productive of ague and fever.
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