[9] Mosquitoes always sting an old-countryman during the first year ensuing his arrival more than they ever do afterwards, and more than they do natives.--TR. [10] There is no dawn in the latitude of the Big Halchee in August, or none worth mentioning.--TR. [11] This is not a picture of an average log-house, (which is wind and water tight, and warm,) but of a very temporary shanty; it is not consistent with the occupant's skill as a back-woodsman, or his industry, that he should have let his wife live a single week in such a hole--especially when a few shingles, and some moss and clay, would have remedied all--TR. [12] The watchmen in Germany, twenty years ago, used to (and, for aught I know, still may) carry a horn, like that of our newsmen, which they blew and announced the hours, &c.--TR. [13] The fires in the back-woods are raked together at bed-time, and covered with thin ashes, and so remain all night, smouldering, so that in the morning they only require to be fanned a little, in order to burn again, so as to ignite fresh fuel; indeed, the back log is usually a thick piece of heavy wood, which lasts a day or two.--TR. [14] The blowing of a horn is the usual signal to come home to breakfast, dinner, supper, or for any other purpose, on North-American farms.--TR. [15] This seems to be rather unaccountable; it may be the popular belief.--TR. [16] Wood is used for fuel throughout Germany, and the numerous forests are under the care of officers, called foresters, who have assistants, called huntsmen, under them; they plant, thin, manage, and cut the timber; also preserve game, kill vermin, &c.--TR. [17] Rough shanties and small log-houses are sometimes covered with planks, as in the text; but the more usual course in America is to roof houses with shingles, which are rectangular pieces of pine split (with a shingle knife) into the thickness of about a quarter of an inch, or less, and these are nailed on, overlapping each other, like tiles; they are light, weathertight, and durable, and only inferior to tiles, slate or tin, in being more liable to accidents by fire.--TR. [18] As the old chimney, even assuming it to have been of brick, would not have sufficed, the reader may perhaps ask where the bricks and mortar came from; but it is common in shanties in the woods, when these cannot be had, to form chimneys of slabs of bass-wood, and plaster them with clay. It need hardly be added that they sometimes take fire.--TR. [19] Persons who once take to chopping--i. e., felling trees--prefer it to all other work, and even feel a kind of passion for it.--TR. CHAPTER V. EXCURSIONS HITHER AND THITHER. We have almost too long neglected a principal person in our narrative, Young Werner; we left him sadly musing on the banks of the beautiful Hudson River, and must now return to him.