1 1 8 In the Canadian Forests v 



have descended into hotels, hotels have descended 

 into Hades, their signs hanging askew for want of the 

 nail which it would not pay to expend on them. 

 Vast wharves, crumbling and falling piece-meal into 

 the water, masses of valuable machinery rusting and 

 sinking by their own weight into the mud, utter 

 bankruptcy. One boarding-house there is, conducted 

 on temperance principles, probably because the land- 

 lord, Mr. Paul, feels that he would be obliged to 

 drink himself to death with his own liquor if he had 

 any. In addition to the few miners who are still 

 left, and some explorers who are still hungrily seeking 

 after wealth, it has a permanent clustage consisting 

 of the telegraph clerk, who, the wires being broken, 

 enjoys a sinecure, and the gentleman who assists in 

 the store. It is comfortable and clean, and there is 

 a sufficiency of well-cooked food, which Mr. Paul 

 dispenses to us, three times a day, with his own 

 hands, relieving his labours by occasionally stalking 

 about the room and spitting as heavily as if he 

 thought we all had evil eyes. The only way to get 

 up an interest is to turn one's back on the town and 

 to wander towards the forest, past the prosperous- 

 looking little clearings, cheerful with the tinkle of 

 the cow-bells, and homelike with the curl of the soft 

 blue smoke rising from the mud chimneys of the log 

 huts. The squall of the child from the interior, the 

 bits of muslin and the bright flowers in the little 

 windows, are positively exhilarating after the mourn- 

 ful dulness of that ruined gambler by the lake side. 



