The individual under consideration was a Frenchman, and a native of Quebec. He was above the medium height, about forty years of age, graceful in his manners, active in mind and body, and altogether just the character to rivet the attention of the most casual observer. He was wholly ignorant of the world, having never been out of his native city, excepting when he took up his abode in this out-of-the-way corner of the country, where, at the time we met with him, he had been secluded for nearly twenty years. He had a wife (but no children) who was as much like himself in appearance and character as nature could well allow her to be. He was totally illiterate, and yet possessed an attachment to the unwritten science of botany which was truly remarkable. His cabin had only two lower rooms and one garret, and yet the best of the three was exclusively appropriated to a collection of plants, gathered from the neighboring hills and mountains, and numbering several hundred varieties, together with large moose horns, furs, and other forest curiosities. He knew not the generic name of a single specimen, and yet he would expatiate upon their beauty in the most interesting manner, showing that he loved them with intense affection. To the hunting and cultivation of plants he told us he was in the habit of devoting more than half of his time, whereupon we asked him from what source he obtained his living. He informed us that having inherited the large tract of land upon which he resided, he had come here for the purpose of getting a living out of _that_. On casting our eyes about, and finding nothing for them to rest upon but mountains of solid rock, where even pine trees hardly had the courage to grow, we thought his reply somewhat mysterious. He smiled at our perplexity, and then told us that he had two or three profitable salmon fishing grounds within a mile of his house, which were rented out to Quebec fishermen, and yielded him all the necessaries of life, and that he obtained his fresh meats with his own hands from the forest.