"If the farm is to be given away for nothing I may venture to say, _it will be worth nothing_," replied H., and continued, "I had an acquaintance who went to Canada a few years ago with L500; and having lived three years upon one of those 'nothing farms' or rather, living upon his money during that time, he returned to England utterly worth _nothing_. Why, Fred! such farms may be suitable enough for men of iron muscles and wooden stomachs, and who can work whether they eat or not;--men who have nothing to lose except their life, and would even sacrifice that for a small amount. But for either you or I to go there in search of a living, or anything else, except death and horror, would be worse for us than hanging; it would eventually result in strangulation by starvation. And besides, as my acquaintance informed me, the woods are infested with wild animals; and if a fellow attempted to venture out at night very possibly his carcass would be very soon deposited in the inside of a dozen of wolves. He further told me that the trees during summer rained down myriads of mosquitoes as large as beetles, with stings like hornets and in the shape of a tube, by which means a dozen of them could suck up a fellow's blood in a night; and were by far a greater plague than the grasshoppers of Egypt. To prevent them from settling upon himself he covered his head and neck with a mask made from deer-skin, in which he cut holes to inhale air and see through; but despite of such precautions they would sometimes force their way through these orifices, and one dart, said he, into a fellow's eye was sufficient to cause a myriad of stars to fly from his winker." "Well, but that is really horrifying," exclaimed Mrs. Charlston. "Awful, awful!" shouted Amelia. "'Tis really so indeed," added Eliza. "Oh! it is all bosh," ejaculated Fred. "_Bosh!_ d'ye say!" exclaimed H. "Indeed, I have only told you the least objectionable part. I assure you, he related things that would make a fellow's blood to curdle into vinegar, and perspire from every pore of the body. I credit everything he told me, for his word is as much to be depended upon as the 'Law of Moses.'" "That'll do for the present," said Amelia. "Go on," cried George. "What did he say about the climate?" inquired Mr. C. "He told me, sir, that it was so hot during the dog-days in summer, that the people had to lie upon deer-skins filled with water to prevent their bodies from being totally dissolved into vapor, and, that at the end of that terrible season they appeared only as living skeletons, as slender, indeed, as to be incapable of producing even a shadow." "Oh! but that is awfully horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. C. Mr. Charlston and George laughed heartily. The girls shrugged up their shoulders, expressive of nervous twitchings.