here: he desired
the officer to take two large tents for the use of Mr. Campbell, to be
returned to the fort when the house had been built, and they were
completely settled. He even proposed that Mrs. Campbell and the Misses
Percival should remain at Government House until Mr. Campbell had made
every preparation to receive them; but this Mrs. Campbell would not
consent to, and, with many thanks, she declined the offer.

CHAPTER VII.

Although it was now the middle of May, it was but a few days before
their departure that there was the least sign of verdure, or the trees
had burst into leaf; but in the course of the three days before they
quitted Quebec, so rapid was the vegetation, that it appeared as if
summer had come upon them all at once. The heat was also very great,
although, when they had landed, the weather was piercing cold; but in
Canada, as well as in Northern America, the transitions from heat to
cold, and from cold to heat, are very rapid.

My readers will be surprised to hear that when the winter sets in at
Quebec, all the animals required for the winter's consumption are at
once killed. If the troops are numerous, perhaps three or four hundred
bullocks are slaughtered and hung up. Every family kill their cattle,
their sheep, pigs, turkeys, fowls, etc., and all are put up in the
garrets, where the carcasses immediately freeze hard, and remain quite
good and sweet during the six or seven months of severe winter which
occur in that climate. When any portion of meat is to be cooked, it is
gradually thawed in lukewarm water, and after that is put to the fire.
If put at once to the fire in its frozen state it spoils. There is
another strange circumstance which occurs in these cold latitudes; a
small fish, called the snow-fish, is caught during the winter by making
holes in the thick ice, and these fish coming to the holes in thousands
to breathe, are thrown out with hand-nets upon the ice, where they
become in a few minutes frozen quite hard, so that, if you wish it, you
may break them in half like a rotten stick. The cattle are fed upon
these fish during the winter months. But it has been proved, which is
very strange, that if, after they have been frozen for twenty-four hours
or more, you put these fish into water and gradually thaw them as you do
the meat, they will recover and swim about again as well as ever. To
proceed however, with our history,--

Mr. Campbell found that, after all his expen