The county of Sherbrooke embraces the greater part of the district of St. Francis, immediately south of Trois Rivières, to which it is often considered as attached. Being quite beyond the range of the Seigniories, it has been divided into twenty-nine townships, which include much valuable land. It presents in general a broken and varied surface, sometimes rising into mountains clothed with fine timber, is well watered, yet not so encumbered with swamps as the more western districts. The only part hitherto settled is that adjoining to Stanstead in Montreal; but the British American Land Company expect soon to diffuse culture over the whole. Orford, indeed, the first on this side, is so mountainous as to be almost unfit for improvement, and contains only 320 inhabitants. But the west, Ascot, with 1,800, Compton to the south, with 2,020, and Eaton to the east, with 1,500, are in general very fine, with an undulating surface, and commodiously watered by streams well adapted for mills. The first contains Sherbrooke, the county town, where the commerce of the neighbouring settlements chiefly centres. It contains about 350 inhabitants, with three places of worship and a woollen manufactory; and the Land Company have lately made it the centre of their operations. They have undertaken a new road to Port St. Francis, whereby the distance will be reduced to seventy miles, and have likewise established a stage conveyance between the two places, by which the journey is performed in one day. They have also improved the roads to Quebec and Montreal, from each of which it is about 100 miles distant. In Eaton and Compton are rising villages bearing the same names. South from Eaton, Clifton and Newport, though hilly, contain much good land; yet in 1831 their united population was only 188. [Illustration: _Mills at Sherbrooke, on the River Magog._] [Illustration: _Bridge at Sherbrooke._ (Eastern Townships.)] The north-western part of the county includes Melbourne, with 1,280 settlers, and Shipton, on the Nicolet, with 1,900. The two are considered the finest of all the St. Francis townships, and their population is rapidly increasing. Shipton contains Richmond, a village of some consequence, and another is rapidly rising in Melbourne. Windsor and Stoke are represented as possessing almost equal advantages; yet they have drawn little attention, the former containing only 220 settlers, the latter scarcely any. Brompton, west from these, though uneven and rocky, has some good tracts, which have drawn 350 inhabitants; while Dudswell, east of Windsor, which has also a variegated surface, can boast of 342.