NO EMIGRATION. 85 



sitting rooms of each, placed on the opposite side, so when 

 sitting- at the fire you had the stove at your back ! Another 

 custom peculiar to the Dutch is, instead of lying upon a fea 

 ther bed, to have it for a covering in lieu of a sheet and 

 blankets, having a straw or chaff one underneath ! It is 

 certainly a warm, but to me not pleasant, method of lying. 

 Some severe cold nights of late; one night I believe the 

 thermometer was ten or twelve degrees below Zero, but it is 

 milder again and pleasant. 



Feb. 6. There has been a greater quantity of snow this 

 winter than was ever known since the settlement of the 

 country. In the west, twelve to eighteen inches deep on a 

 level ; back about London, and down at York, twenty-four 

 to twenty-eight inches; and farther down the province, 

 three feet and upwards. The weather has been proportion- 

 ably cold, and frost steady till now, except a small thaw a 

 few days in January, which it is said always happens, little 

 or much, in that month. 



Feb. 23. A beautiful and clear warm day ; the snow has 

 been wasting for some days past, which has broken up the 

 excellent sleighing that had lasted steady all winter. The 

 strength of the crust of the snow has this winter enabled 

 the wolves to hunt down the deer, and great numbers have 

 been destroyed. Attended a vendue, or auction sale of 

 farming- stock lately, for which a credit of ten months was 

 given, and the payment to be in wheat at the market price 

 of the time of payment. The sale was conducted in much 

 the same manner as an English country auction, with this 

 peculiarity, that every time a person gives a bidding, he is 

 offered the bottle of whisky to drink, besides its free and 

 constant circulation through the whole company. A neigh 

 bour acts as auctioneer, paying for a license 4s. 6d. for a 

 year. On account of credit being given, things went off 

 much higher than they otherwise would have done. A 

 small aged horse, III. Is. 6d. ; cows from 31. to 51. 5s. ; a 

 yoke of oxen, 16/. Ss. ; sheep from 6s. 9d. to 14s. 9d. each, 

 with their wool on; a wooden clock, 3/. 16s. This man s 

 circumstances and progress may be stated as a criterion of 

 the success of steady industrious settlers in general. He, 

 with several others of the family, came into Canada seven 

 years ago, from the United States, with little or no property 

 besides a bed, and a few other things, of small value. After 



