sely painted and loosely built
steam-vessels at the wharfs, and small, dirty, steam ferry-boats,
constantly plying to and from the British shore.

Windsor is a small village, scattered, as most Canadian villages are,
with a little barrack, in which a detachment of the Royal Canadian
Rifle corps is stationed, to watch the frontier. The Americans are now
building a large fort on the opposite side.

I left Windsor at nine a.m., in a light waggon and pair, and rolled
along the bank of the river to Sandwich, the county or district town,
two miles from Windsor, opposite to which the Americans are building a
fortification of some size, but apparently only an extensive
earth-work.

It is a very pleasant drive along the banks of the Straitened River,
or Detroit, close to the water, and occasionally in it, to refresh the
horses. The population, chiefly French Canadians and Indians, occupy
the roadside in detached farms; the Canadian huts and houses being, as
in Lower Canada, invariably whitewashed and planted at short
intervals.

We saw the Indians both industrious and idle: some were hoeing maize,
others harvesting wheat, and the _habitants_ were also very busy in
the fields.

The idle Indians, the most numerous, were lounging along the banks,
under the shade of melancholy boughs, as naked as they were born,
bathing, smoking, or making baskets. In the intense heat I envied
them, and thought of the days of Paradise when tailors were not.

We stopped in this intense heat at Maitre Samondon's tavern, having
passed Sandwich, which has church, chapel, jail, and court-house, and
is plentifully inhabited by French, whose domiciles evidently date
from its first settlement. I saw some of the largest pear-trees here
that I had ever seen; they were as big as good-sized walnut-trees in
England.

We had a Yankee driver, a young fellow, whose ease and good-temper
amused me very much. He had good horses, drove well, and had been in
his time all sorts of things; the last trade, that of a mail-driver on
the opposite shores, where, he said, the republic were going ahead
fast, for they were copying Europeans, and had taken to robbing the
mail by way of raising the wind; so that, in some place he mentioned
in Pennsylvania, it was a service of danger to drive, for they fired
out of the Bush and killed the horses occasionally. He told us several
feats of his own against these robbers, but concluded by guessing that
he should not have to car