The labor of cutting the road in deep snow was great, and the expense proportionately enormous. Our provisions had to be carried in on men's backs, for the snow had not been broken in time enough to admit of horses or even oxen, so that one half of our men were employed in carrying, or, as it is technically termed, _packing_ provisions for the other. The want of oxen produced another enormous source of expenditure; when a log was cut it had to be drawn by drag ropes out of the way, and thirty men could not perform, in the deep snow, what a yoke of oxen could easily have performed in light snow or none at all. When the snow got very deep, too, we had, before felling a tree, to dig a pit round it of sufficient diameter to allow a man to stand in it and swing his axe. The expense of a war surprises John Bull, and he only grumbles; were he to enquire into the causes, it is to be hoped he would be shy of so expensive an amusement, where after all he does not get his fun for his money. I would undertake to-morrow to cut a better road than we could possibly do, for forty pounds a mile, and make money by it,--give me timely warning and a proper season of the year, whereas I am convinced that £2,500 to £3,000 did not pay for the one we cut. Our amusements consisted in shooting partridges and snaring the Canadian hare, which, as it comes out of its hiding place chiefly at night, can only be apprehended, as the game laws style it, in that manner. The mode of so doing, being caused by the necessities of the country, is worthy of remark. These animals inhabit the swamps, and make roads through the snow for the purpose of coming out to where they can browse. In these roads a spring is set, by bending down a young sapling, and two pegs are driven into the ground on each side of the path, and notches are cut, in which a yoke is neatly set, from which the noose hangs down, much on the principle of a mole trap. The hare jerking the wire, relieves the yoke, and the sapling resumes its erect position, carrying the hare eight or ten feet above the surface of the snow, and this secures him from becoming the prey of the wolf or the fox, who, if he was within their reach, would inevitably secure him before his legitimate captor arrived in the morning.