In Canada the roads are very bad in comparison with
the English or Irish roads; but, to make up for this, the price of
forage is very low.
I have said that the cross-mail conveyances in Canada did not seem
to be very closely bound as to time; but they are regulated by
clock-work in comparison with some of them in the United States.
"Are you going this morning?" I said to a mail-driver in Vermont.
"I thought you always started in the evening." "Wa'll, I guess I
do; but it rained some last night, so I jist stayed at home." I do
not know that I ever felt more shocked in my life, and I could
hardly keep my tongue off the man. The mails, however, would have
paid no respect to me in Vermont, and I was obliged to walk away
crest-fallen.
We went with the mails from Sherbrooke to a village called Magog,
at the outlet of the lake, and from thence by a steamer up the
lake, to a solitary hotel called the Mountain House, which is built
at the foot of the mountain, on the shore, and which is surrounded
on every side by thick forest. There is no road within two miles
of the house.
