At present the honey-bee swarms in myriads in the noble groves and forests that skirt and intersect the prairies, and extend along the alluvial bottoms of the rivers. It seems to me as if these beautiful regions answer literally to the description of the land of promise, "a land flowing with milk and honey;" for the rich pasturage of the prairies is calculated to sustain herds of cattle as countless as the sands on the sea-shore, while the flowers with which they are enamelled render them a very paradise for the nectar-seeking bee.

We had not been long in the camp, when a party set out in quest of a bee-tree; and being curious to witness the sport, I gladly accepted an invitation to accompany them. The party was headed by a veteran bee-hunter—a tall, lank fellow, with a homespun garb that hung loosely about his limbs, and with a straw hat shaped not unlike a beehive. A comrade, equally uncouth in garb, and without a hat, straddled along at his heels, with a long rifle on his shoulder. To these succeeded half a dozen others, some with axes, and some with rifles; for no one stirs far from the camp without his fire-arms, so as to be ready either for wild deer or wild Indians.

After proceeding for some distance we came to an open glade on the skirts of the forest. Here our leader halted, and then advanced quietly to a low bush, on the top of which he placed a piece of honeycomb. This, I found, was the bait or lure for the wild bees. Several were seen humming about it, and diving. into the cells. When they had laden themselves with honey, they would rise into the air, and dart off in a straight line, almost with the velocity of a bullet. The hunters watched attentively the course they took, and then set off in the same direction, stumbling along over twisted roots and fallen trees, with their eyes turned up to the sky. In this way they traced the honeyladen bees to their hive, in the hollow trunk of a blasted oak, where, after buzzing about for a moment, they entered a hole about sixty feet from the ground.

Two of the bee-hunters now plied their axes vigorously at the foot of the tree, to level it with the ground. The mere spectators and amateurs, in the meantime, drew off to a cautious distance, to be out of the way of the falling tree and the vengeance of its inmates. The jarring blows of the axe seemed to have no effect in alarming or disturbing this most industrious community. They continued to ply at their usual occupations; some arriving, full freighted, into port; others sallying forth on new expeditions, like so many merchantmen in a money-making metropolis,

little suspicious of impending bankruptcy and downfall. Even a loud crack, which announced the disrupture of a trunk, failed to divert their attention from the intense pursuit of gain. At length, down came the tree with a tremendous crash, bursting open from end to end, and displaying all the hoarded treasures of the commonwealth.

One of the hunters immediately ran up with a wisp of lighted hay, as a defence against the bees. The latter, however, made no attack, and sought no revenge; they seemed stupefied by the catastrophe, and unsuspicious of its cause, and remained crawling and buzzing about the ruins, without offering us any molestation. Every one of the party now fell to, with spoon and hunting-knife, to scoop out the flakes of honeycomb with which the hollow trunk was stored. Some of them were of old date, and a deep brown colour; others were beautifully white, and the honey in their cells was almost limpid. Such of the combs as were entire were placed in camp-kettles, to be conveyed to the encampment; those which had been shivered in the fall were devoured upon the spot. Every stark bee-hunter was to be seen with a rich morsel in his hand, dripping about his fingers, and disappearing as rapidly as a cream tart before the holiday appetite of a schoolboy.

Nor was it the bee-hunters alone that profited by the downfall of this industrious community. As if the bees would carry through the similitude of their habits with those of laborious and gainful man, I beheld numbers from rival hives, arriving on eager wing to enrich themselves with the ruin of their neighbours. These busied themselves as eagerly and cheerfully as so many wreckers on an Indiaman that has been driven on shore; plunging into the cells of the broken honeycombs, banqueting greedily on the spoil, and then winging their way full freighted to their homes. As to the poor proprietors of the ruin, they seemed to have no heart to do anything, not even to taste the nectar that flowed around them; but crawled backward and forward in vacant desolation, as I have seen a poor fellow with his hands in his breeches pocket, whistling vacantly and despondingly about the ruins of his house that had been burnt.

It is difficult to describe the bewilderment and confusion of the bees of the bankrupt hive, who had been absent at the time of the catastrophe, and who arrived from time to time with full cargoes from abroad. At first they wheeled about in the air, in the place where their fallen tree had once reared its head, astonished at finding it all a vacuum. At length, as if compre

hending their disaster, they settled down in clusters on a dry branch of a neighbouring tree, from whence they seemed to contemplate the prostrate ruin, and to buzz forth doleful lamentations over the downfall of their republic. It was a scene on which the "melancholy Jacques" might have moralised by the hour.

We now abandoned the place, leaving much honey in the hollow of the tree. "It will all be cleared off by varmint," said one of the rangers. "What vermin ?" asked I. "Oh, bears, and skunks, and raccoons, and 'possums," said he; "the bears is the knowingist varmint for finding out a bee-tree in the world. They'll gnaw for days together at the trunk, till they make a hole big enough to get in their paws, and then they'll haul out honey, bees and all." W. IRVING,

THE CANADIAN INDIANS.

A FAMILY of Indians have pitched their huts very near us, on one of the islands of our lake; we can distinguish the thin blue smoke of their wood fires, rising among the trees, from our front window, or curling over the bosom of the waters.

The squaws have been several times to see me ; sometimes from curiosity, sometimes with a view of bartering their baskets, mats, ducks, or venison, for pork, flour, potatoes, or articles of wearing apparel. Sometimes their object is to borrow "kettle to cook," which they are very punctual in returning.

Once a squaw came to borrow a washing tub, but not understanding her language, I could not for some time discover the object of her solicitude; at last she took up a corner of her blanket, and pointing to some soap began rubbing it between her hands, imitated the action of washing, then laughed, and pointed to a tub; she then held up two fingers to intimate that it was for two days she wanted the loan.

These people appear of gentle and amiable dispositions; and, as far as our experience goes, they are very honest. Once, indeed, the old hunter, Peter, obtained from me some bread, for which he promised to give a pair of ducks, but when the time came for payment, and I demanded my ducks, he looked gloomy, and replied with characteristic brevity, "No duck-Chippewa" (meaning S, this being the name they have affectionately given him) gone up lake with canoe-no canoe-duck by and by." By

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and by is a favourite expression of the Indians, signifying an indefinite point of time; may be it means to-morrow, or a week, or a month, or it may be a year, or even more. They rarely give you a direct promise.

As it is not wise to let any one cheat you if you can prevent it, I coldly declined any further overtures to bartering with the Indians until my ducks made their appearance.

Some time afterwards I received one duck by the hands of Maquin, a sort of Indian Flibbertigibbit: this lad is a hunchbacked dwarf, very shrewd, but a perfect imp; his delight seems to be tormenting the grown babies in the wigwam, or teasing the meek deerhounds. He speaks English very fluently, and writes tolerably for an Indian boy; he usually accompanies the women in their visits, and acts as their interpreter, grinning with mischievous glee at his mother's bad English, and my perplexity at not being able to understand her signs. In spite of his extreme deformity he seemed to possess no inconsiderable share of vanity, gazing with great satisfaction at his face in the. looking-glass. When I asked his name, he replied, "Indian name Maquin, but English name Mister Walker, very good man ;" this was the person he was called after.

These Indians are scrupulous in their observance of the Sabbath, and show great reluctance to having any dealings in the way of trading or pursuing their usual avocations of hunting or fishing on that day.

The young Indians are very expert in the use of a long bow, with wooden arrows, rather heavy and blunt at the end. Maquin said he could shoot ducks and small birds with his arrows; but I should think they were not calculated to reach objects at any great distance, as they appear very heavy.

It is sweet to hear the Indians singing their hymns of a Sunday night, their rich soft voices arising in the still evening air. I have often listened to this little choir praising the Lord's name in the simplicity and fervour of their hearts, and have felt it was a reproach that these poor half-civilized wanderers should alone be found to gather together to give glory to God in the wilderness.

I was much pleased with the simple piety of our friend, the hunter, Peter's squaw, a stout, swarthy matron of a most amiable expression. We were taking our tea when she softly opened the door and looked in; an encouraging smile induced her to enter, and depositing a brown papouse (Indian for baby or little child) on the ground, she gazed round with curiosity and delight in her

eyes. We offered her some tea and bread, motioning to her to take a vacant seat beside the table. She seemed pleased by the invitation, and drawing her little one to her knee, poured some tea into the saucer and gave it to the child to drink. She ate very moderately, and when she had finished, rose and wrapping her face in the folds of her blanket, bent down her head on her breast in the attitude of prayer. This little act of devotion was performed without the slightest appearance of Pharisaical display, but in singleness and simplicity of heart. She then thanked us with a face beaming with smiles and good humour; and taking little Rachel by the hands, threw her over her shoulder with a peculiar sleight that I feared would dislocate the tender thing's arms, but the papouse seemed well satisfied with this mode of treatment.

In long journeys the children are placed in upright baskets of a peculiar form, which are fastened round the necks of the mothers by straps of deer-skin; but the young infant is swathed in a sort of flat cradle, secured with flexible hoops to prevent it from falling out. To these machines they are strapped, so as to be unable to move a limb. Much finery is often displayed in the outer covering and the bandages that confine the papouse.

There is a sling attached to this cradle, that passes over the squaw's neck, the back of the babe being placed to the back of the mother, and its face outward. The first thing a squaw does on entering a house is to release herself from her burden and place it up against the wall, or chair, chest, or anything that will support it, where the passive prisoner stands, looking not unlike a mummy in its case.

The squaws are most affectionate to their little ones. Gentleness and good humour appear distinguishing traits in the tempers of the female Indians; whether this be natural to their characters, the savage state, or the softening effects of Christianity, I cannot determine.

The squaws are very ingenious in many of their handiworks. We find their birch-bark baskets very convenient for a number of purposes. My bread-basket, knife-tray, and sugar-basket, are all of this humble material. When ornamented and wrought in patterns with dyed quills, I can assure you they are by no means inelegant.

They manufacture vessels of birch-bark so well that they will serve for many useful household purposes, such as holding milk, soup, water, or any other liquid; they are sewed, or rather stitched together with the tough roots of the tamarack or larch, or else