deplore their early orphanage, or to call in vain for their fathers’ return. In fact, they were mourned by none but unconnected neighbours. “Thirteen days had now elapsed since the departure of the two adventurous settlers, and all hope of their return had completely vanished. On the morning of Christmas-day, as I was in the act of sending messengers to some of Howay’s most intimate acquaintance, to request them to take an inventory of his property, I was informed that he and his companion had returned a few hours before, alive, but in a most wretched condition. When I had recovered in some measure from my surprise I went to see them, for I felt anxious to hear from themselves an account of their extraordinary preservation. Never in my life did I behold such spectacles of woe, poverty, and distress. Their emaciated countenances, wild and sunken eyes, withered limbs, and tattered garments, produced such an extraordinary effect upon my imagination, that I approached them with a degree of timidity for which I was unable to account. I sat down beside them, and for some time fancied I was holding converse with the ghosts of departed spirits; nor could I entirely banish this idea from my mind during a conversation of several hours. Their preservation appeared to me as signal an interposition of Providence as any of which I had before heard; and, since it may not prove uninteresting to you, who are unacquainted with the woods and wilds of America, I shall give you a particular account of it. I consider it the more likely to interest you, because it is none of those second-hand stories which usually, as they fly from cabin to cabin, increase prodigiously, until they swell beyond the reasonable bounds of probability, and fearfully invade those illimitable regions— ‘Where human thought, like human sight, Fails to pursue their trackless flight.’ “On the day of their departure, they pursued the bear, which took a north-western course for at least twenty miles, and at night stopped upon his track. With great difficulty they lit a fire, having contrived to produce a light by the application of a piece of dry linen to the pan of their gun whilst flashing it. Thus, before a good fire, they spent the first night, which was exceedingly cold, both supperless and sleepless.