I hardly know how to convey to you an idea of the difference between the two shores; it will appear to you as incredible as it is to me incomprehensible. Our shore is said to be the most fertile, and has been the longest settled; but to float between them (as I did to-day in a little canoe made of a hollow tree, and paddled by a half-breed imp of a boy)--to behold on one side a city, with its towers and spires and animated population, with villas and handsome houses stretching along the shore, and a hundred vessels or more, gigantic steamers, brigs, schooners, crowding the port, loading and unloading; all the bustle, in short, of prosperity and commerce;--and, on the other side, a little straggling hamlet, one schooner, one little wretched steam-boat, some windmills, a catholic chapel or two, a supine ignorant peasantry, all the symptoms of apathy, indolence, mistrust, hopelessness!--can I, can anyone, help wondering at the difference, and asking whence it arises? There must be a cause for it surely--but what is it? Does it lie in past or in present--in natural or accidental circumstances?--in the institutions of the government, or the character of the people? Is it remediable? is it a necessity? is it a mystery? what and whence is it?--Can you tell? or can you send some of our colonial officials across the Atlantic to behold and solve the difficulty? The little hamlet opposite to Detroit is called Richmond. I, was sitting there to-day on the grassy bank above the river resting in the shade of a tree, and speculating on all these things, when an old French Canadian stopped near me to arrange something about his cart. We entered forthwith into conversation; and though I had some difficulty in making out his _patois_, he understood my French, and we got on very well. If you would see the two extremes of manner brought into near comparison, you should turn from a Yankee storekeeper to a French Canadian! It was quite curious to find in this remote region such a perfect specimen of an old-fashioned Norman peasant--all bows, courtesy, and good-humour. He was carrying a cart-load of cherries to Sandwich, and when I begged for a ride, the little old man bowed and smiled, and poured forth a voluble speech, in which the words _enchanté! honneur!_ and _madame!_ were all I could understand; but these were enough. I mounted the cart, seated myself in an old chair surrounded with baskets heaped with ripe cherries, lovely as those of Shenstone-- "Scattering like blooming maid their glances round, And must be bought, though penury betide!"