A squatter is a man who, axe in hand, with his gun, dog, and baggage, sets himself down in the deep forest, to clear and improve; and this he very frequently does, both upon public and private property; and the Government is lenient, so that, if he makes well of it, he generally has a right of pre-emption, or perhaps pays up only instalments, and then sells and goes deeper into the bush. Every way there is difficulty about squatted land, and very often the squatter will significantly enough hint that there is such a thing as a rifle in his log castle. Squatters are usually Americans, of the very lowest grade, or the most ignorant of the Irish, who really believe they have a right to the soil they occupy. I do not profess to give an account of the Eastern Townships; the prospectus of the British American Land Company will do that; and, as I have never been through them entirely, so I could only advance assertion; but I believe that they are admirably adapted for English and Scotch settlers, and that, bounded as they are by the French Canadians on one side, and by the United States on the other, with every facility for roads, canals, and railways, they must become one of the richest, most and important portions of Canada before half a century has passed over; but it will take that time, notwithstanding railways and locomotives, to make Jean Baptiste a useful agriculturist; and the fly must be eradicated from the wheat before Lower Canada can ever come within a great distance of competition in the flour market with the upper province. Take a steamboat voyage from Quebec to Montreal, and you pass through French Canada; for, although there are very extensive settlements of the race below Quebec till they are lost in the rugged mountains of Gaspesia, yet the main body of _habitants_ rest upon the low and tranquil shores of the St. Lawrence, for one hundred and eighty miles between the Castle of St. Lewis and the Cathedral of Montreal. The farm-houses, neat, and invariably whitewashed, line the river, particularly on the left bank, like a cantonment, and go back to the north for, at the utmost, ten or twelve miles into the then boundless wilderness.