Lake Erie. He shot big
bustards and wild turkeys in the bush, where wolves and deer were as
thick as rabbits in a warren, and tramped the uplands, teeming with
quail and prairie chicken. Continuing by Delaware and the Government
road at Oxford on the Thames, and by the "Long Woods" over the Burford
Plains to Brant's Ford, he reached the Grand River, and then by Ancaster
and the head of the lake to Burlington, when he followed the Lake
Ontario southern shore road to Niagara.

Many of the settlers whom he met were from the Eastern States. These
were the original Loyalists or their descendants, patriots to the core.
Other more recent arrivals--perhaps two-thirds of the whole--came from
Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, attracted by the fertility of the
soil and freedom from taxation, or to escape militia service. These
latter he quickly realized were not the class to rely upon in event of
war, but he gave no public sign of distrust. It was from the pick of the
first-mentioned stalwarts that Brock formed his loyal Canadian militia,
his gallant supporters in the war of 1812, who made a reputation at
Detroit and Queenston that will never die.

He was more than ever sensible of the resources of the country. This
glimpse of the west enamoured him. To his "beloved brothers"--our hero
always thus addressed them--he described it as a "delightful country,
far exceeding anything I have seen on this continent." The extent of
the Great Lakes amazed him, as did their fish. From these deep cisterns
he had seen the Indian fishermen take whitefish, the _ahtikameg_
(deer-of-the-water), twenty pounds in weight; maskinonge--
_matchi-kenonje_, the great pike--more than twice that size, and
sturgeon that weighed two hundred pounds and over, and in such
quantities that he hesitated to tell his experiences on his return.

Henry's stories of five hundred whitefish taken with a scoop net at the
rapids of Sault Ste. Marie in two hours were no longer questioned. The
size of the red-fleshed land-locked trout (the quail-of-the-water), of
pickerel and bass, astounded him. His travels had broadened his views.
The chatter of his Iroquois and Algonquin friends was now easier of
interpretation. The riddles of the wilderness were more easily read. He
now realized how possible it was, in this continent of unsurveyed
immensity, to journey for weeks, after leaving the white man's domain
hundreds of miles behind, and then reach only the rim of another ki