“Youths’ free spirit, innocently gay, Enjoyed the most that innocence could give.” Another of their summer amusements was going to the bush, which was thus managed: a party of young people set out in little open carriages, something in the form of a gig, of which every family had one; every one carried something with him, as, in these cases, there was no hunting to add provision. One brought wine for negus, another tea and coffee of a superior quality, a third a pigeon pie; in short, every one brought something, no matter how trifling, for there was no emulation about the extent of the contribution. In this same bush, there were spots to which the poorer members of the community retired, to work their way with patient industry, through much privation and hardship, compared to the plenty and comfort enjoyed by the rest. They perhaps could only afford to have one negro-woman, whose children, as they grew up, became to their master a source of plenty and ease: but in the mean time, the good man wrought hard himself, with a little occasional aid sent him by his friends. He had plenty of the necessaries of life, but no luxuries. His wife and daughters milked the cows and wrought at the hay, and his house was on a smaller scale than the older settlers had theirs, yet he had always one neatly-furnished room. A very clean house, with a pleasant portico before it—generally a fine stream beside his dwelling, and some Indian wigwams near it. He was wood-surrounded, and seemed absolutely to live in the bosom of nature, screened from all the artificial ills of life; and those spots, cleared of incumbrances, yet rich in native luxuriance, had a wild originality about them, not easily described. The young parties, or sometimes elder ones, who set out on this woodland excursion, had no fixed destination; they went generally in the forenoon, and when they were tired of going on the ordinary road, turned into the _bush_, and wherever they saw an inhabited spot, with the appearance of which they were pleased, went in with all the ease of intimacy, and told them they were come to spend the afternoon there. The good people, not in the least surprised at this incursion, very calmly opened the reserved apartments, or if it were very hot, received them in the portico. The guests produced their stores, and they boiled their tea-kettle, and provided cream, nuts, or any peculiar dainty of the woods which they chanced to have; and they always furnished bread and butter, which they had excellent of their kinds. They were invited to partake of the collation, which they did with great ease and frankness; then dancing, or any other amusement that struck their fancy, succeeded. They sauntered about the bounds in the evening, and returned by moonlight. These good people felt not the least embarrassed at the rustic plainness of every thing about them: they considered themselves as on the way, after a little longer exertion of patient industry, to