x PREFACE TO THE CANADIAN EDITION. 



publicity in a provincial serial, but in spite of my spirited 

 impressario having prefaced his piracy by the assertion 

 that " he had commissioned a British Lord at a handsome 

 salary" "to discover the North Pole" and to furnish his 

 Magazine with " an account of his adventures," confirmed 

 as it was by such a transfiguration of the dates, tenses, and 

 superscriptions in my narrative as might best colour this 

 ingenious fiction — the speculation must have proved a 

 financial failure, as no per centage on his profits has 

 hitherto reached my hands. 



Notwithstanding this discouraging experience, I am still 

 in hopes that the Canadian reader, apart from any per- 

 sonal interest with which he may regard the author, will 

 not grudge an occasional half-hour to a description of those 

 out-land countries that share with his Dominion the 

 Aurora's ruby affluence, and are wrapped by winter in the 

 same silver mantle as his own; whose early mariners — 500 

 years before Columbus — swept through the gulfs of his 

 St. Lawrence, and struck the headlands of his Acadie ; and 

 whose modern inhabitants, in the simplicity of their lives, 

 in the nobleness of their courtesy, in the freedom of their 

 political institutions, and in their masculine energy exem- 

 plify and prefigure within their lesser limits the qualities, 

 virtues, and attainments proper to a great Northern 

 people. 



And here I should be disposed to end my brief apology 

 for this Edition, were it not that I am tempted to seize the 

 opportunity of answering a question that has been frequently 

 put to me — " What has become of Wilson ? " 



