I am much pleased with the specimens of Canadians whom we have on board. There are some twenty of them, with their wives, daughters, and small boys. They are a quiet, well-informed, pleasant set of men, and ready and pleased to talk of their country and her prospects. My conversation runs to a great extent, as you may suppose, on the chances of farming in Canada West, which is the part of the colony with the greatest future, and I am much pleased with what I hear. Any man with a capital of from £2000 to £3000 may do very well, and make money quite as fast as is good for him, if he will only keep steady and work; and the life is exceedingly fascinating for youngsters.

There is a very nice fellow on board, a gentleman in the conventional sense, who is returning from a run to Gloucestershire to see his friends. He has been out for seven years only, two of which he spent as an apprentice with a farmer, learning his trade. He is quite independent now, and I would not wish to meet a better specimen of a man.

I doubt whether you, being so orderly a party, would quite appreciate what appears to be the favourite form of pleasuring amongst the up-country farmers, but I own that it would have suited my natural man down to the ground. Half a dozen of them, in the bright, still wintertime, will agree that they haven’t seen Jones for some weeks, so will give him “a surprise.” Accordingly they all start from their own houses so as to meet at his farm about 9.30 or 10 o’clock—the time he would be going to bed.

They drive over in sledges, each taking his wife, sister, or sweetheart, a good hamper of provisions and plenty of buffalo robes. Jones finds his yard full of neighing horses and sledges as he is going to bed. If he has already gone they knock him up. They then take possession of his house and premises. The men litter down their horses, the women light his fire and lay the supper, the only absolute rule being, that Jones and his family and servants do nothing at all.

They all sit down to supper and then dance till they are tired, and then the women go to bed; and the men, if there are no beds for them, as generally happens, roll themselves in their buffalo robes and go to sleep. In the morning they breakfast, and then start away home again over the snow in their sledges, after the men have cut up firewood enough to keep Jones warm for a week.

There is magnificent trout and salmon fishing, and deer, wolf, and bear shooting, for those who like to seek it in the backwoods, and plenty of time for sport when the farm work is over, or in the winter. At the big towns, such as Montreal and Toronto, there is plenty of society, and evidently cultivated society, though young Guardsmen may speak shudderingly of colonists.

Box and Cox, by the way, went off very well considering that the Captain, who played Box, had been up on the bridge almost the whole of the two previous nights, and consequently did not quite know his part.