SSe FOREST LIFE IN ACADIK. 



suspended on a ridge pole bound to two uprights, and tlio 

 sloping sides stretched and fastened to pegs ; it had a 



l\ valence all round ahout two feet high. The area of the 



surface it covered was some eight feet by ten. Not being 

 oiled, it weighed only a dozen pounds or so, and when 



'1 well stretched was quite rain-proof, unless the sides were 



touched by a gun or anything leaning against them, when 



1 1 it would drip. 



( Never encamp in a low site at the foot of a hill ; for 



it is not pleasant, however well you may be protected 

 from the falling Avaters, to find yourself becoming sud- 



j denly soaked by the rising flood, in the nice comfortable 



hollow which your form has made in your bed of boughs. 

 We never expect, and rarely find, any unpleasant results 

 in the way of a severe cold from these little disagreeables 

 of camping out ; living constantly in the open air steels 

 the sensibility of the system to catarrhal affections, and 



^ the Indians aver that they are more apt to take cold by 



going into a house than we are by going into the open 

 air. And so we take things very philosophically ; so 

 much so, sometimes, that a friend of mine, on being 

 roused from his slumbers, on the plea that he was lying 

 in three inches of water, immediately lay down again in 



'^ the old spot, averring that " the water there was warmer 



than anywhere else in the camp." In this country, 

 storms of this description never last very long, twelve to 



I twenty-four hours from the commencement being the 



general duration, when the wind veering round to the 

 west (our fine-weather quarter), soon clears off the rolling 

 cloud masses from the sky, and a glorious sun and cool 

 zephyr quickly dry the dripping forest. 



I like to have the sound of a bubbling brook for a 



