batteaus with a strong party, and made us directly in shore as we could, and had the good fortune to land about twelve miles above Kingston, determined to make our way on horseback, _coute qu'il coute_. Any one who has only seen the roads of Canada in the present day, can form but a very inadequate idea of what they were then between Kingston and Toronto; for a considerable part of the way we were literally up to our saddle-flaps. In those days all the horses along the roads were taken up for Government, and an officer receiving the _route_ gave the proprietor an order for so many horses so many miles, and the nearest Commissary paid it; or he paid it, taking a receipt which, when he showed it to the Commissary at the end of his journey, was refunded. We necessarily took the latter mode, seeing we had no route to show, and therefore paid our way ourselves. The officer who accompanied me being like myself a subaltern, we found we uniformly got the worst horses, as Major A. or Colonel B. or some other "person of worship" was expected, and the best must necessarily be kept for him. It struck me therefore that if "Captain" was a good travelling name, "General" must be a much better; I proposed to my companion that he should have the rank of Major General "for the road only," and I volunteered to act as Aide-de-camp. He liked the plan, but objected that he was too young to look the character, but that as I had a more commanding and dignified presence, I should do General and he Aide-de-camp, and as we were dressed in our surtouts and forage caps, we were well aware that we might easily pass with the uninitiated for any rank we might think proper to assume. Accordingly, when we approached a halt where we were to change horses, he rode briskly forward and began to call lustily about him, as "one having authority," for horses, and pointing to a very active, stout looking pair, peremptorily ordered them to be brought out and saddled; but the man of the house excused himself by saying that he "kept them horses for the sole use of Major B. the Deputy Quarter Master General, and as he had the conducting of the troops on the line of march through which the road lay, and had it in his power to put good jobs in his way, he was not a man whom he could offend on slight grounds."