PREFACE

The British Colonies in North America have advanced so rapidly during the last ten years, that those who have not had the advantage of viewing their progress, can scarcely credit the extent of their present power and importance; the British public will, therefore, naturally look with a favourable eye upon any work treating of their actual condition.

A long residence in Canada; several voyages across the Atlantic; the nature of the duties I had to perform, and the advantage of my official station, which obliged me at different times to visit nearly every part of the country, from the lonely shores of Labrador, Anticosti, and the Bay of Chaleurs, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to the far off solitudes of Lake Huron, of course afforded me opportunities, seldom to be otherwise gained, of obtaining a knowledge of the immense territory embraced in these limits.

In the course of such extensive travels, I became acquainted with the people inhabiting that territory, from the resident of the city to the hard-working pioneers in the vast forests, and to the wandering and savage Indian.

Leisure to embody all the information thus gleaned has not, however, hitherto been afforded me ; and even in undertaking to place before the public the present volumes, other avocations scarcely allow me time to prepare them for the press with that care which is so desirable in a work seeking to blend information with amusement.

I have not attempted any very methodical arrangement, but have divided the work into such chapters as the reader may take up separately, according as his taste and objects may dictate. I am not without hope, however, that the local as well as national connexion between the several subjects may give a continuous interest to the whole.

R. H. B.

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