A YANKEE CATTLE DEALER. 57 



making the Canadian woods resound with German 

 songs. 



On the following morning I reached the Buffalo 

 road, lined on both sides with farms, and on which a 

 sort of stage-coach runs. I was now again in the cul- 

 tivated part of the country. Wheat is grown in large 

 quantities, and answers very well, as do oats and 

 barley ; Indian corn does not attain the degree of per- 

 fection in which it is found further south. The ears 

 were small, and most of those I saw had yellow grain. 



About thirty miles from the town, I overtook a 

 cattle dealer from the United States, who was on his 

 road back. He seemed a good sort of fellow, and I 

 resolved to travel the thirty miles in his company. 

 We soon became acquainted. He had two enormously 

 fat oxen, which he had bought in Canada, and a dread- 

 fully thin horse, on which he kindly invited me to 

 take turns to ride, as he would wiUingly walk a little. 



A light but penetrating rain was falling, and the 

 ride would not have been disagreeable, though the road 

 had become slippery ; only the good man was constantly 

 offering the horse, while I was riding, to every person 

 he met, and would have been glad to exchange it for a 

 couple of cows. When tu'ed, he mounted again, and I 

 walked. He carried a book in his pocket containing 

 a deeply affecting tragedy, and as soon as he was firmly 

 fixed in the saddle, he invariably took it out, and began 

 to declaim, holding the book in his left hand, and 

 gesticulating vehemently with his right, in which he 

 brandished his long cattle whip. Whenever the more 

 interesting parts of the tragedy occasioned an extra 

 forcible movement of the right arm, and with it of the 



