observes a writer whom we have already quoted, "of the Upper Canadian farmer may be summed up in a few words: He has plenty, and he enjoys it. The native Canadians almost universally, and a large proportion of the old country people, sit at the same table with their servants or labourers. They eat meat twice, and many of them thrice a day; it being apparently more a matter of taste than of economy as to the number of times. Pork is what they chiefly consume. There being a great abundance of fruit, scarcely a cleared farm is without an orchard; and it is to be found preserved in various ways on every farmer's table. Milk is in great abundance, even in the early settler's houses, for where there is little pasture there are sure to be large woods; and brouse,' or the tops of the branches of trees, supply the place of hay. The sweetest bread I have eaten in America I have eaten in the farmers' houses of Upper Canada. They usually grind the shorts' with the flour for home consumption, and as their wheat is among the finest in the world, the bread is at once wholesome and exceedingly delicious. Were I asked what is the leading characteristic of the Upper Canadian farmer, I should unquestionably answer, PLENTY. Plenty reigns in his granary, plenty is exhibited in his farm-yard, plenty gleams from his corn fields, and plenty smiles from the faces of his children. But let it not be imagined that this plenty is gained without continuous labour, and the exercise of judgment and intelligence. Many of the finest farms in Upper Canada have passed out of the hands of those whose fathers won them from the forest: and many more are exhausted and unproductive, through injudicious management, indolence, or inattention; and in some instances the very labourers on the farms, which have been sold and wasted by the second generation, have been able to purchase them. Industry literally converted the labourer into the lord, whilst extravagance and indolence reduced the lord to the labourer. Nor have old country people, who brought habits of extravagance with them, or who knew not how to work, and refused to learn, fared much better; for labour, which achieves, as I have shown, so much in Canada, may, by reason of its great cost, be proportionally ruinous, if it is injudiciously employed or misdirected. It is like the sails, which, if the steering be good, may fill and work beautifully; but if the helm be ill-managed, may bring everything to a standstill, or endanger the whole ship. As a general rule, the gentleman farmer, or rather the gentle man who would not be a farmer, because he would not learn the value of labour, or how to direct it when he employed it, has lamentably failed in Upper Canada. The gentleman, however, who is willing to take his coat off, and, as the Yankees quaintly observe, to march forward to the music of his own axe,' may be certain of plenty, and have the consolation as well-through the rise of property-of leaving his children well off. At all events he will leave them where they will have been taught how to succeed, and where success is attainable. But it is undeniable-if such a circumstance may not rather be called admirable-that the agricultural wealth of Canada has chiefly fallen into the hands of the poor practical farmer, and the still poorer labourer." The same writer gives the following picture of emigrant experience :-"Great has been the prosperity of America, and of the settlements which mark the magnificent country just described; yet Nature has not been wooed in them without trials, nor have her treasures been won without a struggle worthy of their worth. Those who have been in the habit of passing early clearings in Upper Canada must have been struck with the cheerless and lonely, even desolate, appearance of the first settler's log hut. In the midst of a dense forest, and with a patch of clearing' scarcely large enough to let the sun shine in upon him, he looks not unlike a person struggling for existence on a single plank in the middle of an ocean. For weeks, often for months, he sees not the face of a stranger. The same still, and wild, and boundless forest every morning rises up to his view; and his only hope against its shutting him in for life rests in the axe upon his shoulder. A few blades of corn, peeping up between stumps whose very roots interlace, they are so close together, are his sole safeguards against want; whilst the few potatoe-plants, in little far-between hills,' and which struggle for existence against the briarbush and luxuriant underwood, are to form the seeds of his future plenty. Tall pinetrees, girdled and blackened by the fires, stand out as grim monuments of the prevailing loneliness, whilst the forest itself, like an immense wall round a fortress, seems to say to the settler, How can poverty ever expect to escape from such a prison-house.' "Yet there is, happily, a poetry in every man's nature; and there is no scene in life, how cheerless soever it may seem, where that poetry may not spring up; where it may not gild desolation itself, and cause a The few to hope where all the world beside might The little log hut was used as a back despair. That little clearing-for I de- kitchen to a neat two-story frame house, scribe a reality,-which to others might painted white. A large barn stood near by, afford such slender guarantee for bare sub- with stock of every description in its yard. sistence, was nevertheless a source of bright The stumps, round which the blades of corn, and cheering dreams to that lonely settler. when I last saw the place, had so much He looked at it, and instead of thinking of difficulty in springing up, had nearly all its littleness, it was the foundation of great disappeared. Luxuriant Indian corn had hopes of a large farm and rich corn-fields to sole possession of the place where the potahim. And this very dream, or poetry, or toes had so hard a struggle against the what you will, cheered him at his lonely briar-bushes and the underwood. toil, and made him contented with his rude forest dense, impenetrable though it fireside. The blades of corn, which you seemed-had been pushed far back by the might regard as conveying but a tantalizing energetic arm of man. A garden, bright idea of human comforts, were associated by with flowers, and enclosed in a neat picket him with large stacks and full granaries; fence, fronted the house: a young orchard and the very thought nerved his arm, and spread out in rear. I met a farmer, as I made him happy. His little lonely hut, was quitting the scene, returning from into which I saw shrink out of sight his church with his wife and family. It was timid children-for they rarely if ever saw on a Sunday, and there was nothing in their a stranger, was coupled by him, not with appearance, save perhaps a healthy brown the notion of privations and hardships you colour in their faces, to distinguish them might naturally attach to it, but with the from persons of wealth in cities. The wagproud and manly idea that it should be the gon they were in, their horses, harness, place where he should achieve the respect-dresses-everything about them, in short ability and independence of those children. indicated comfort and easy circumstances. But, besides this, he knew the history of I inquired of the man, who was the owner hundreds, nay, thousands of others in of the property I have just been describing? Canada, who had gained prosperity against It is mine, sir,' he replied; 'I settled on similar odds. it nine years ago, and have, thank God, had tolerable success. "Seven years afterwards I passed that same settler's cottage; it was in the valley of the Grand River in Upper Canada, not far from the present village of Caledonia. Such was an early settler of Upper Canada. Such were his hardships, his fortitude, and his success. rounding beauties, in that silent hour-path on the mountain's side-a labour when the winds slept, the voice of Nature's choir was hushed, the very flowers shrouded, and only the silvery light of the moon to illumine the traveller's pathmade us meditate on the goodness of Him who had given us the night for our repose, and the day for our labours. Djouni is situated about eight miles east of Sidon, up the mountains, and is celebrated as the spot where the eccentric, yet highly-gifted Lady Hester Stanhope the favourite niece of William Pitt-lived and died. It is almost impossible for any one to select a more wild and romantic-looking spot in all Syria than Djouni; and although we cannot censure her ladyship for the choice of Syria as her home, rather than any other part of the East, yet we must examine the motives that induced her to adopt her mode of life, and fix her home in this wild region. that was not at all recompensed by the scene of desolation that we witnessedone that might have made us exclaim with Byron— "Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow: Syria-the country of the vine and the olive, the cedar and the palm-combines the advantages of many climes within its limits; although it can only be said to possess two distinct climates-one very hot, on the coast and interior plains, such as Baalbec, Antioch, Tripoli, and others; and the other temperate, resembling our own, as the climate of the mountains, to a certain elevation. while Summer lies sleeping at his feet." This may appear ridiculous to some; but, nevertheless, it is correct, as regards the variation of the temperature. The wild Bedouins of Palmyra gave her the empty title of maleka, or queen; An Arabian poet, with true oriental and in return she lavished her gold, and imagery, has said that "Lebanon bears gave them an order to impose a heavy Winter on his head, Spring on his tax upon every traveller that should after-shoulders, and Autumn on his bosom, wards visit its ruins. Poets, painters, travellers of all grades, and from all climes, visited and paid court to her. Flattered by attentions she did not receive in her own land, her affections blighted (for it is reported that she had been affianced to Sir John Moore, who fell at Corunna), her talents diverted from their proper channel, and her ambition and pride gratified, she surrendered herself to hallucinations, and became her own dupe. Feigning madness, or eccentricity, she fed her wild and imaginative followers with prophecies, miracles, and hopes of her own fancy's creation. Magic and astrology were her favourite studies, and her religious doctrines a confusion. The kiosks, with their sculptured arabesques entwined with the luxuriant vine and jasmine, the arbours and fountains that she planned, and the trees she planted, are now a wreck. To approach the remains of the fairy home Lady Hester formed for herself in this region, we had to wind up a zigzag The order of the seasons in the mountains is nearly the same as in the middle provinces of France: the winter, which lasts from November to March, is sharp and rigorous; the spring and autumn, mild; and the summer heat almost intolerable. In the plains, on the contrary, as soon as the sun returns to the equator, the transition to oppressive heat, which continues to the end of October, is very rapid; but the winter is so mild that the orange, date, banana, and other delicate fruit-trees, flourish in the open air. Persons about to visit any country should possess themselves of a thorough knowledge of its climate, or, at least, as far as possible; and during their sojourn make notes respecting the temperature, &c.; because it is pretty certain that the meteorological causes of diseases consist of such atmospheric changes as temperature, moisture and changes in the composition of the air, arising from exhalations from the earth, large surfaces of water, and decomposing animal and vegetable matters. Every reader should pay attention to these matters, for they are highly important to travellers, and affect us all directly or indirectly. During July and August attacks of coups de soleil" are frequent in the plains; and from July to October, when the heat is excessive, remittent and intermittent fevers, small-pox, scarlatina, and plague attack the residents of the plains especially, while those on the mountains generally escape. Cholera and ophthalmia sometimes rage during the hot months. In the variable months rheumatism, catarrh, and glandular swellings of the throat are prevalent; while dysentery and diseases of the brain and stomach are the chief diseases of the rainy months; for it should be borne in mind that the soil of a Turkish city is filthy in the extreme. At Damascus fevers and agues prevail almost universally during the autumn, which may be ascribed to the great mass of vegetable matter undergoing decomposition, and the winter is very severe. Syria has had, in common with other countries, seasons of extreme heat and cold, and others characterised by mildness; but the two extremes of heat and cold during the year are chiefly felt in the southernmost parts of Syria, on the confines of Arabia. Extremely hot seasons occurred during the reign of Justinian, Theodosius, Sultan Murad III., and Mohammed III.; and very severe frosts in the years A.D. 601, 753, 934, 764, 928, and 1232. The year 1508 was of so mild a character that almond and pomegranate-trees were in full bloom in January, and the olive plantations were growing luxuriantly. The rains which develop atmospheric and terrestrial electricity, after a dry season, commence about the end of October, but they are not long or plentiful. In December and January the rain becomes more frequent and heavy, but interrupted only at intervals of five or six days, with great violence, the drops being smaller on the mountains than on the plains. Sometimes it rains in March and April, but Damascus is generally exempt from April to November. The remainder of the year is uniform, and drought is more frequently complained of than the rain, which, when it does come, descends, as Dryden says "so fast That all at once it falls." Hail usually falls in December, but is not so frequent as might be imagined, and the hailstones not larger than in England. Such hailstones as fell when the five kings went to war against Gibeon, and slew more of their army than the swords of the Israelites,* or those that destroyed the vines and cattle of the Egyptians,† are not to be seen in Syria now, although some modern travellers have asserted that they have fallen as large as walnuts! but long continued and severe hail-storms sometimes occur. The most prolonged and severe one recorded took place on the 8th of February, 1801, which lasted two days and nights, without intermission, and did an incalculable amount of damage. Snow often falls in November, December, and January, to the depth of a foot or fourteen inches, but does not remain long on the ground, especially in the south. The height of the snow line in Syria is estimated to be 9.520 feet (Trig.) above the level of the sea; and Lebanon, which is covered with snow to the depth of four or five feet on the Djebel Sunnin, and from six to eight, or even twelve feet, on the Djebel Sheikh, is considered impassable after the first of November, on account of the drifts. The snow of Lebanon is a profitable source of income to some of the peasants, who collect and retail it in hardened and compressed blocks to the sherbet makers, to cool their beverage; and the snow harvest is anxiously regarded-for, as in the days of Jeremiah, the natives exclaim, " Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon ?" There are four remarkable falls of snow in Syria recorded, viz., 18th January, * Joshua x. 11. † Psalms xxxviii. 47. |