A WINTER WITH THE LUMBERERS 193 



and the ships are loaded and ready to sail as soon 

 as the ice breaks up. So the logs of this year will 

 probably not be shipped until next season. 



The throwing the logs down the steep banks is the 

 hardest, and also the most picturesque, part of the lum- 

 berers' labour. It is not performed until the ice breaks ; 

 otherwise the logs would jam, and form barriers in the 

 narrow parts of the stream, an accident which does some- 

 times happen, and gives a lot of trouble. Though the 

 logs have sometimes to float hundreds of miles to the 

 place where they are formed into rafts, very few, if any, 

 of them are lost. 



In May I returned to Quebec, staying on the road a 

 short time at the house of a hospitable Frenchman, but 

 there is nothing in this part of my journey to record, for 

 I was in no condition to attend to the natural history 

 of the district, and I soon quitted Quebec for a short 

 sojourn at home. 



On my return to America I went straight to the 

 States, being convinced that the climate of Canada was 

 too severe for me ; yet it was not until a year or two 

 later that I became the proprietor of the prairie schooner 

 (travelling store-waggon) so frequently alluded to in my 

 first book. My travels in the northern part of the 

 United States form the subject of the rest of this book ; 

 but they were not of such a nature as to admit of a con- 

 nected narrative. It is rather of the manners and 

 customs of the people that I now treat, but with an eye 

 to the natural objects of the districts through which I 

 passed. 



