NO EMIGRATION. 89 



to several of which we went. My friend could not meet 

 with a market for his butter and cheese at so high a price 

 as at Amherstburgh, large quantities having already arrived. 

 Detroit, as well as Sandwich, was settled by the French 

 about the same time as Philadelphia. There is a large 

 Roman Catholic church, and a moderate size Presby 

 terian one. Re-crossed the river, and stopped for the night 

 at one of the ferry-houses. Two or three young men, 

 from the river Thames, are here with twenty barrels of cider 

 in a boat, ready to &quot; run &quot; across to Detroit in the night, to 

 evade the duty. They had sold it at three dollars per barrel. 

 April 4. My friends return to Amherstburgh, where 

 they will leave their butter and cheese at a store, to be sold 

 on commission, and return home ; while I proceed on foot, 

 on my route up the Detroit, for the river Thames, along 

 the road through Westminster to the head of Lake Ontario. 

 The banks of the river Detroit, near the ferry, and some 

 distance up on the Canada side, are from ten to twenty feet 

 high, giving a pleasant commanding prospect, with some 

 good and neat French houses, having orchards and gardens 

 at short distances, on the side of the road, which runs along 

 the banks of the river. The land is cleared nearly two 

 miles back, and free from stumps those unsightly objects 

 to &quot; old country &quot; people, on first coming into America, on 

 new- cleared farms. The flower gardens enclosed with pales, 

 though rude, and the old orchards, and green pastures, give 

 it more the appearance of my native country, which is thus 

 brought to my imagination, than any part I have yet seen 

 in the new world. Farms sell here at from 45s. to 31. 10s. 

 per acre, a house and some buildings included. The French 

 have a neater way of making their zig-zag fences, by strait 

 ening them a little, and putting a stake on each side of the 

 corners, which are pinned together nearer the top than is 

 in general use. Their houses, that were in good repair, are 

 also more neat, by being covered over their sides with bark. 

 Six or seven miles above Detroit is Lake St. Ciair ; and 

 just on entering it is an island in the river ; this lake is, I 

 believe, nearly circular ^ and twenty or thirty miles across. 

 Along the Canada side of it I travelled to the mouth of the 

 Thames. Its banks are very low, and in places are large 

 marshes ; but where there are none it is chiefly settled, and 

 mostly by French, who speak English barely sufficient to bs 

 understood. At the mouth of the river Thames there are 



