How often, in my wanderings, have I felt the truth of Shakspeare's lines in "As you Like It:"

"Now, my co-mates and partners in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court? Here feel we but the penalty of AdamThe seasons' difference."

On the fourth day we descended, crossed the wide prairie, and arrived at the Fond du Lac, where we again fell in with the Fox river, which runs through the Winnebago lake. The roads through the forests had been very bad, and the men and horses shewed signs of fatigue; but we had now passed through all the thickly wooded country, and had entered into the prairie country, extending to Fort Winnebago, and which was beautiful beyond conception. Its features alone can be described; but its effects can only be felt by being seen. The prairies here are not very large, seldom being above six or seven miles in length or breadth; generally speaking, they lie in gentle undulating flats, and the ridges and

hills between them are composed of oak openings. To form an idea of these oak openings, imagine an inland country covered with splendid trees, about as thickly planted as in our English parks; in fact, it is English park scenery, Nature having here spontaneously produced what it has been the care and labour of centuries in our own country to effect. Sometimes the prairie will rise and extend along the hills, and assume an undulating appearance, like the long swell of the ocean; it is then called rolling prairie.

Often, when I looked down upon some fifteen or twenty thousand acres of these prairies, full of rich grass, without one animal, tame or wild, to be seen, I would fancy what thousands of cattle will, in a few years, be luxuriating in those pastures, which, since the herds of buffalo have retreated from them, are now useless, and throwing up each year a fresh crop, to seed and to die unheeded.

Frenchman, who had purchased some land at Fond du Lac, and was proceeding there in company with an American, whom he had hired to settle on it. I now parted company with him; he had gone out with me in my shooting excursions, and talked of nothing but his purchase: it had water; it had a waterfall; it had, in fact, everything that he could desire; but he thought that, after two years, he would go home and get a wife a Paradise without an Eve would

:

be no Paradise at all.

The price of labour is, as may be supposed, very high in this part of the country. Hiring by the year, you find a man in food, board, and washing, and pay him three hundred dollars per↑ annum (about £70 English).

The last night that we bivouacked out was the only unfortunate one. We had been all comfortably settled for the night, and fast asleep, when a sudden storm came on, accompanied with such torrents of rain as would have washed us out of our tents, if they had not been already blown

down by the violence of the gale. Had we had any warning, we should have provided against it; as it was, we made up huge fires, which defied the rain; and thus we remained till daylight, the rain pouring on us, while the heat of the fire drying us almost as fast as we got wet, each man threw up a column of steam from his still saturating and still heated garments. Every night we encamped where there was a run of water, and plenty of dead timber for our fires; and thus did we go on, emptying our waggons daily of the bread and pork, and filling up the vacancies left by the removal of the empty casks with the sick and lame, until at last we arrived at Fort Winnebago.

CHAPTER IV

WE had not to arrive at the fort to receive a welcome, for when we were still distant about seven miles, the officers of the garrison, who had notice of our coming, made their appearance on horseback, bringing a handsome britchska and grey horses for our accommodation. Those who were not on duty (and I was one) accepted the invitation, and we drove in upon a road which, indeed, for the last thirty miles, had been as level as the best in England. The carriage was followed by pointers, hounds, and a variety of dogs, who were off duty like ourselves, and who appeared quite as much delighted with their run as we were tired with ours. The medical officer attached to the fort, an old friend and correspondent of Mr. Lee of Phi