In this latter branch of household economy he became very expert, and still piques himself on it. To all these heterogenous functions of sowing and reaping, felling and planting, frying, boiling, washing and wringing, brewing and baking, he added another, even more extraordinary—for many years he solemnized all the marriages in his district. Besides natural obstacles, he met with others far more trying to his temper and patience. ‘He had continual quarrels,’ says Dr. Dunlop, ‘with the successive governors, who were jealous of the independent power he exercised in his own territory, and every means were used to annoy him here, and misrepresent his proceedings at home; but he stood firm, and by an occasional visit to the colonial office in England, he opened the eyes of ministers to the proceedings of both parties, and for a while averted the danger. At length, some five years ago, finding the enemy was getting too strong for him, he repaired once more to England, and returned in triumph with an order from the colonial office, that nobody was in any way to interfere with his proceedings; and he has now the pleasure of contemplating some hundreds of miles of the best roads in the province, closely settled on each side by the most prosperous families within its bounds, who owe all they possess to his judgment, enthusiasm, and perseverance, and who are grateful to him in proportion to the benefits he has bestowed upon them, though in many instances sorely against their will at the time.’ The original grant must have been much extended; for the territory now under Colonel Talbot’s management, and bearing the general name of the Talbot country, contains, according to the list I have in his own hand-writing, twenty-eight townships, and about 650,000 acres of land, of which 98,700 are cleared and cultivated. The inhabitants, including the population of the towns, amounted to about 50,000. ‘You see,’ said he, gaily, ‘I may boast, like the Irishman in the farce, of having peopled a whole country with my own hands.’ He has built his tower, like the eagle his eyry, on a bold cliff overhanging the lake. It is a long wooden building, chiefly of rough logs, with a covered porch running along the south side. Here I found suspended, among sundry implements of husbandry, one of those ferocious animals of the feline kind, called here the cat-a-mountain, and by some the American tiger, or panther, which it more resembles. This one, which had been killed in its attack on the fold or poultry-yard, was at least four feet in length, and glared at me from the rafters above ghastly and horrible. The farm consists of six hundred acres. He has sixteen acres of orchard-ground, and has a garden of more than two acres, very neatly laid out and enclosed, and in which he evidently took exceeding pride and pleasure. He described the appearance of the spot when he first came here as contrasted with its present appearance. I told him of the surmises of the people relative to his