immediately, in a gentle tone and with a French accent, "Me watch deer--you want to cross?" On receiving an answer in the affirmative, he ran in search of a rail which he threw over the terrific mud-hole--aided me to walk across by the help of his pole--showed my husband where to plunge--waited till he had gone safely through and "slow circles dimpled o'er the quaking mud"--then took himself off by the way he came, declining any compensation with a most polite "rien, rien!" This instance of true and genuine and generous politeness I record for the benefit of all bearskin caps, leathern jerkins and cowhide boots, which ladies from the eastward world may hereafter encounter in Michigan.
    Our journey was marked by no incident more alarming than the one I have related, though one night passed in a wretched inn, deep in the "timbered land"--as all woods are called in Michigan--was not without its terrors, owing to the horrible drunkenness of the master of the house, whose wife and children were in constant fear of their lives, from his insane fury. I can never forget the countenance of that desolate woman, sitting trembling and with white, compressed lips in the midst of her children. The father raving all night, and coming through our sleeping apartment with the earliest ray of morning, in search of more of the poison already boiling in his veins. The poor wife could not forbear telling me her story--her change of lot--from a well-stored and comfortable home in Connecticut to this wretched den in the wilderness--herself and children worn almost to shadows with the ague, and her husband such as I have described him. I may mention here that not very long after I heard of this man in prison in Detroit, for stabbing a neighbour in a drunken brawl, and ere the year was out he died of delirium tremens, leaving his family destitute. So much for turning our fields of golden grain into "fire water"--a branch of business in which Michigan is fast improving.
    Our ride being a deliberate one, I felt, after the third day, a little wearied, and began to complain of the sameness of the oak-openings and to wish we were fairly at our journey's end. We were crossing a broad expanse of what seemed at a little distance a smooth shaven lawn of the most brilliant green, but which proved on trial little better than a quaking bog--embracing within its ridgy circumference all possible varieties of

"Muirs, and mosses, slaps and styles"--

I had just indulged in something like a yawn, and wished that I could see our hotel. At the word, my companion's face assumed rather a comical expression, and I was so preparing to inquire somewhat testily what there . . .