the watch against snakes."

The road they were traversing had been cleared of trees from one
settler's holding to another, and they stopped for a few minutes at
three or four of the farmhouses. Some of these showed signs of comfort
and prosperity, while one or two were mere log cabins.

"I suppose the people here have lately arrived?" Wilfrid remarked as
they rode by one of these without stopping.

"They have been here upwards of two years," Mr. Mitford replied; "but
the place is not likely to improve were they to be here another ten.
They are a thriftless lazy lot, content to raise just sufficient for
their actual wants and to pay for whisky. These are the sort of people
who bring discredit on the colony by writing home declaring that there
is no getting on here, and that a settler's life is worse than a dog's.

"People who come out with an idea that a colony is an easy place to get
a living in are completely mistaken. For a man to succeed he must work
harder and live harder here than he would do at home. He is up with the
sun, and works until it is too dark to work longer. If he employs men he
must himself set an example to them. Men will work here for a master who
works himself, but one who thinks that he has only to pay his hands and
can spend his time in riding about the country making visits, or in
sitting quietly by his fire, will find that his hands will soon be as
lazy as he is himself. Then the living here is rougher than it is at
home for one in the same condition of life. The fare is necessarily
monotonous. In hot weather meat will not keep more than a day or two,
and a settler cannot afford to kill a sheep every day; therefore he has
to depend either upon bacon or tinned meat, and I can tell you that a
continuance of such fare palls upon the appetite, and one's meals cease
to be a pleasure. But the curse of the country, as of all our colonies,
is whisky. I do think the monotony of the food has something to do with
it, and that if men could but get greater variety in their fare they
would not have the same craving for drink. It is the ruin of thousands.
A young fellow who lands here and determines to work hard and to abstain
from liquors--I do not mean totally abstain, though if he has any
inclination at all towards drink the only safety is total abstinence--is
sure to get on and make his way, while the man who gives way to drink is
equally certain to remain at the bottom of the tree. Now we are just
pas