SABBATH IN THE FOREST. 57 



day. We were fourteen miles from a human habita- 

 tion, and I expected that day to have gone thirty 

 miles further into the forest and spent the Sabbath ; 

 but the storm that was approaching made the shelter 

 of a log-cabin seem too inviting, and I changed my 

 mind. To row fourteen miles against a head wind 

 and sea was no child's play, and for one I resolved 

 not to do it. So, making a bargain with Mitchell, 

 the Indian, I wrapped my oil- skin cape about me, and 

 laying my rifle-across my lap, ensconced myself in 

 the stern of the boat, and made up my mind to a 

 drencher. The black clouds came rushing over the ' 

 huge black mountains, and the rain began to fall in 

 torrents. Now hugging the shore to escape the blast, 

 and now sailing under the lee of an island, we crawled 

 along until at length, late in the afternoon, we found 

 ourselves comfortably housed. 



The log hut of Mitchell, in which I spent the Sab- 

 bath, was in the centre of two or three acres of cleared 

 land ; all the rest was forest. During the day, I was 

 struck with the sense of propriety and delicacy of 

 feeling shown by him. Sunday must have been a 

 weary day to him ; yet he engaged in no sports, per- 

 formed no work, that I saw, inappropriate to it. In 

 the afternoon, however, he took down his violin, and 

 for a moment I felt pained, expecting such music as 

 would distress one to hear on the Sabbath. He, how- 

 ever, refrained from all those tunes I knew he pre- 

 ferred, and played only sacred hymns, most of them 

 Methodist ones. I could not imagine where he had 

 learned them ; but this silent respect to my feelings 

 6* 



