The Black-Sealed Letter | Page 5

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.
"And in winter," continued H., "it is so intensely cold that every river to
its foundation is frozen into ice. It snows sometimes for weeks without
ceasing; it is then generally followed by fierce winds which drift the
snow into heaps like mountains, frequently burying houses and their
inhabitants a hundred feet deep."
"Horrible! horrible!" ejaculated Mrs. C.
"The air is sometimes so intensely cold that the mercury in the
thermometer is congealed into ice at 150 degrees below zero; and it
frequently occurs during those frosty periods that travellers, with their
horses and vehicles, are found petrified into ice, so hard that they never
can be thawed out again. Hundreds of such groups are preserved in the
Canadian museums, and shown as curiosities to foreign travellers."
"Oh! Charlie, for pity's sake, don't horrify us so!" shouted Mrs. C.
"Do stop, Charlie, you'll frighten us to death," exclaimed the girls,

fearfully excited.
Mr. Charlston and George laughed heartily. Fred muttered out
something condemnatory; while George cried out, "Go on Charlie, tell
the whole story."
"I haven't told you the one-half yet; but this will do for the
present;--only I might merely add,--that if Fred goes out for a free-farm
he will get a free wife into the bargain. The forests are infested with a
more dangerous class of animals than wolves. They are savages in
human shape, and are designated by the name of Indians. Every
foreigner who takes a farm is compelled to take a young squaw--a she
Indian--as a wife to himself. The males in return kidnap white women
for themselves; but should a man refuse to comply with their wishes, he
is immediately seized upon by those savages and flayed at once. His
skin is afterwards tanned, and made into tobacco-pouches. These are
sold to traders and imported to England. What say you, Fred, to this?
Should you go to Canada, I may yet have a pouch made out of your pelt.
So good night to all," ejaculated Holstrom, and abruptly made his exit,
amidst an uproar of exclamations and laughter.
CHAPTER III.
Perhaps many of my readers may think that I have thrown in the
statements of Charles Holstrom as a sort of burlesque