It was arranged that I should drive my wife as far as Cobourg, and
leave her with some friends till my return. I was to take out with me
from Cobourg the gentleman's sister, Miss Jane W-----, who was to
return with me.

We left Darlington in a one-horse pleasure-waggon so called, or rather
mis-called, by the natives. For my part, I never could find in what the
pleasure consisted, unless in being jerked every minute two or three
feet from your seat by the unevenness of the road and want of springs
in your vehicle, or the next moment being soused to the axletree in a
mud-hole, from which, perhaps, you were obliged to extricate your
carriage by the help of a lever in the shape of a rail taken from some
farmer's fence by the roadside. You are no sooner freed from this
Charybdis, than you fall into Scylla, formed by half a mile of
corduroy-bridge, made of round logs, varying from nine to fifteen
inches in diameter, which, as you may suppose, does not make the most
even surface imaginable, and over which you are jolted in the roughest
style possible, at the expense of your breath and injury of your
person. I am happy to say that better roads and a better description of
pleasure-carriages have superseded these inconvenient conveyances.

Since the institution of county councils, and the formation of towns
and townships into municipalities, great attention has been bestowed,
and large sums of money voted, for the improvement of roads and
bridges; and several Joint-stock companies, chartered by the Provincial
Parliament, have completed sundry lines of plank and macadamized roads,
on which toll-gates have been erected. What has already been done in
this way has added greatly to the wealth and settlement of the
province. No one can understand, indeed, except the early settler, what
a blessing a good road is, especially to those who are too far back for
the benefit of water communication.

The day was fine and clear when we started, and we congratulated
ourselves on the prospect of a pleasant journey, which, I am sorry to
say, was not to be verified. Distant thunder soon warned us that we
might expect a storm. We hurried on as fast as possible, in hope we
might be able to get through the nine-mile woods, in the township of
Clarke, before the bursting of the storm. In this, however, we were
disappointed; for, before we were half through the woods, the rain fell
in torrents, accompanied by the loudest thunder and most vivid
lightni