542 Our North Land. 



to British grumbling, that even the frogs sing instead of croaking 

 in Canada, and the few letters that have appeared speaking of dis- 

 appointment will be amongst the rarest autographs which the next 

 generation will cherish in their museums. But with even the best 

 troops of the best army in the world you will find a few malingerers 

 — a few skulkers. However well an action has been fought, you 

 will hear officers who were engaged say that there were some men 

 whose idea seemed to be that it was easier to conduct themselves as 

 became them at the rear rather than in the front. So there have 

 been a few lonely and lazy voices raised in the stranger press dwel- 

 ling upon your difficulties and ignoring your triumphs. These have 

 appeared from the pens of men who have failed in their own 

 countries and have failed here, who are born failures, and will fail, 

 till life fails them. They are like the soldiers who run away from 

 the best armies seeking to spread discomfiture, which exists only in 

 those things they call their minds, and who, returning to the cities, 

 say their comrades are defeated, or if they are not beaten, they 

 should, in their opinion, be so. 



" We have found, as we expected, that their tales are not worthy 

 the credence even of the timid. There was not one person who had 

 manfully faced the first difficulties — always far less than those to be 

 encountered in the older Provinces — but said that he was getting 

 on well and he was glad he had come, and he generally added that 

 he believed his bit of the country must be the best, and that he 

 only wished his friends could have the same good fortune, for his 

 expectations were more than realized. It is well to remember that 

 the men who will succeed here, as in every young community, are 

 usually the able-bodied, and that their entry on their new field of 

 labour should be when the year is young. Men advanced in life 

 and coming from the old country will find their comfort best con- 

 sulted by the ready provided accommodation to be obtained by the 

 purchase of a farm in the older Provinces. All that the settler in 

 Manitoba would seem to require is, that he should look out for a 

 locality where there is either good natural drainage, and ninety- 

 nine-hundredths of the country has this, and that he should be able 

 readily to procure in Winnipeg, or elsewhere, some light pumps like 



