392 SOLITARY EVANS. 



called a valley — In which Evans was located Is twenty 

 miles. Several very long hills, and many very steep 

 ascents and descents of a shorter kind, were passed dm'ing 

 these twenty miles. As in the latter half of yesterday's 

 drive,. the soft or pine and birchwood forests, generally 

 unbroken, still accompanied me ; though here and there 

 patches or ridges, more or less broad, of hardwood or 

 broad-leaved trees occurred, which will hereafter be 

 selected as centres for settlement, and from which the na- 

 tural expansion of a growing population will gradually 

 spread the arts of rural life over less promising districts. 



This morning there had been frost enough to produce 

 ice half-an-inch thick, and to make me, in addition to a 

 Canadian home-spun coat over my English great coat, 

 feel thankful for a Buffalo coat also, which my landlord 

 on the Mitis had kindly thrust upon me for the journey. 

 The hoar-frost which covered the woods through which 

 we passed lingered upon the trees, and made the air 

 around us chilly till far on in the day — when the sun 

 became high enough at last to peep into the narrow 

 forest channel through which we were sailing, and restore 

 the green colours again to the snowy leaves. 



Evans — solitary, and still young — we found digging 

 and pitting potatoes, of which, for a single man, he had 

 a good supply. He had also some oats, which were 

 alreadv cut. He had been a lumberer, and, like his com- 

 panions, given to drink when occasion presented. In 

 their society, he found he could neither alter his habits 

 nor accumulate money. " I therefore foreswore liquor," 

 he said, " and settled in this lonely spot." For four 

 years he had lived here, and though he had liquor in his 

 house, as he showed me, yet for four years he had 

 abstained. In the autumn, he made a little money by 

 going to the settlements to aid at the harvest. But the 

 solitude had at last become too intense for him, and he 

 was about to remove twelve miles nearer the Resti- 



