re the hardships of a
bush-settler's life ten years ago, and they will tell you it was to
endure cold, hunger, and all its accompanying evils; to know at times
the want of every necessary article of food. As to the luxuries and
delicacies of life, we saw them not;--how could we? we were far removed
from the opportunity of obtaining these things: potatoes, pork, and
flour were our only stores, and often we failed of the two latter before
a fresh supply could be procured. We had not mills nearer than thirteen
miles, through roads marked only by blazed lines; nor were there at that
time any settlers near us. Now you see us in a cleared country,
surrounded with flourishing farms and rising villages; but at the time I
speak of it was not so: there were no stores of groceries or goods, no
butchers' shops, no cleared farms, dairies, nor orchards; for these
things we had to wait with patience till industry should raise them.

"Our fare knew no other variety than salt pork, potatoes, and sometimes
bread, for breakfast; pork and potatoes for dinner; pork and potatoes
for supper; with a porridge of Indian corn-flour for the children.
Sometimes we had the change of pork without potatoes, and potatoes
without pork; this was the first year's fare: by degrees we got a supply
of flour of our own growing, but bruised into a coarse meal with a hand-
mill; for we had no water or windmills within many miles of our colony,
and good bread was indeed a luxury we did not often have.

"We brought a cow with us, who gave us milk during the spring and
summer; but owing to the wild garlic (a wild herb, common to our woods),
on which she fed, her milk was scarcely palatable, and for want of
shelter and food, she died the following winter, greatly to our sorrow:
we learned experience in this and in many other matters at a hard cost;
but now we can profit by it."

"Did not the difficulties of your first settlement incline you to
despond, and regret that you had ever embarked on a life so different to
that you had been used to?" I asked.

"They might have had that effect had not a higher motive than mere
worldly advancement actuated me in leaving my native country to come
hither. Look you, it was thus: I had for many years been the pastor of a
small village in the mining districts of Cumberland. I was dear to the
hearts of my people, and they were my joy and crown in the Lord. A
number of my parishioners, pressed by poverty and the badness of the