The Britannia steam-boat, which plies daily between Toronto and Hamilton, brought us to the mouth of the Credit River in an hour and a half. By the orders of Mr. M * * *, a spring cart or wagon, the usual vehicle of the country, was waiting by the inn, on the shore of the lake, to convey me through the Woods to his house; and the master of the inn, a decent, respectable man, drove the wagon. He had left England a mere child, thirty years ago, with his father, mother, and seven brothers and sisters, and eighteen years ago had come to Canada from the United States, at the suggestion of a relation, to "settle in the bush," the common term for uncleared land; at that time they had nothing, as he said, but "health and hands." The family, now reduced to five, are all doing well. He has himself a farm of two hundred and fifty acres, his own property; his brother has much more; his sisters are well settled. "Any man," said he, "with health and a pair of hands, could get on well in this country, if it were not for _the drink; that_ ruins hundreds." They are forming a harbour at the mouth of the river--widening and deepening the channel; but, owing to the want of means and money during the present perplexities, the works are not going on. There is a clean, tidy inn, and some log and frame houses; the situation is low, swampy, and I should suppose unhealthy; but they assured me, that though still subject to ague and fever in the spring, every year diminished this inconvenience, as the draining and clearing of the lands around was proceeding rapidly. The River Credit is so called, because in _ancient_ times (_i. e._ forty or fifty years ago) the fur traders met the Indians on its banks, and delivered to them on _credit_ the goods for which, the following year, they received the value, or rather ten times the value, in skins. In a country where there is no law of debtor or creditor, no bonds, stamps, bills, or bailiffs, no possibility of punishing, or even catching a refractory or fraudulent debtor, but, on the contrary, every possibility of being tomahawked by said debtor, this might seem a hazardous arrangement; yet I have been assured by those long engaged in the trade, both in the upper and lower province, that for an Indian to break his engagements is a thing unheard of: and if, by any personal accident, he should be prevented from bringing in the stipulated number of beaver skins, his relatives and friends consider their honour implicated, and make up the quantity for him.