sixty miles of the Heights of Queenston, and the storms of winter still rage.
In my course through the western parts of the state of New York, I generally travelled within forty miles of Lake Ontario. In this part of the country many of the people entertain strange notions respecting supernatural agencies. Solitude, whilst it strengthens the mind, and fortifies the heart of the well-informed, renders the ignorant timid and superstitious. The whisper of their forests, and the echo of their hills, alarm their unenlightened imaginations. Those inhabitants of the west, of whom I am now speaking, believe in witchcraft, and often suppose it the source of disease both in man and beast. Whilst on the borders of Ontario, I stopped for a few moments at a log hut where there was a man in a convulsion {52} fit. During the operation of the malady, my attention was attracted by the conversation of two young women upon the subject. One of them observed that if a garment of the man should be taken off and thrown into the fire, the fit would leave him, and never again return. The other assented to the idea; but the prescription was not attended to. Perhaps they were afraid of being bewitched themselves. It is a very common idea too, in the remote parts of New-York, that if a man should shoot an owl with his rifle, it would be rendered so crooked as never to throw ball true again.
I may here say a word of the back-woodsmen. They are hardy, active, industrious, and in the employment of the axe, wonderfully strong and dexterous. But, with respect to manners, some of them are no less rude than the wilds which they inhabit.
The upper part of the state of New York is, comparatively, a wilderness. There are here many Indian reserves. They are solitary places; they are dark spots on
