66 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



April, the rivers swell, or, according to the lumberer's 

 phrase, the 'freshets come down.' 1 At this time all 

 the timber cut during winter is thrown into the 

 water, and floated down until the river becomes suf- 

 ficiently wide to make the whole into one or more 

 rafts. The water at this period is exceedingly cold; 

 yet for weeks the lumberers are in it from morning 

 till night, and it is seldom less than a month and a 

 half, from the time that floating the timber down the 

 streams commences, until the rafts are delivered to 

 the merchants. No course of life can undermine 

 the constitution more than that of a lumberer and 

 raftsman. The winter snow and frost, although 

 severe, are nothing to endure in comparison to the 

 extreme coldness of the snow water of the freshets ; 

 in which the lumberer is, day after day, wet up to 

 the middle and often immersed from head to foot. 

 The very vitals are thus chilled and sapped; and the 

 intense heat of the summer sun, a transition which 

 almost immediately follows, must further weaken 

 and reduce the whole frame. To stimulate the or- 

 gans, in order to sustain the cold, these men swallow 

 immoderate quantities of ardent spirits, and habits 

 of drunkenness are the usual consequence. Their 

 moral character, with few exceptions, is dishonest 

 and worthless. I believe there are few people in the 

 world on whose promises less faith can be placed 

 than on those of a lumberer. In Canada, where 

 they are longer bringing down their rafts, and have 

 more idle time, their character, if possible, is of a 

 still more shuffling and rascally description. Pre- 

 mature old age, and shortness of days, form the in- 

 evitable fate of a lumberer. Should he even save a 

 little money, which is very seldom the case, and be 

 enabled for the last few years of life to exist without 

 incessant labour, he becomes the victim of rheuma- 

 tisms and all the miseries of a broken constitution. 



