notation, they would generally be found to the eye, as they are to the ear, nearly identical.  The discrepancies would be rendered less in cases in which they appear to be considerable, and the peculiarities of idiom, as they exist, would be made more striking and instructive.  I have heard both idioms spoken by the natives, and therefore have more confidence in speaking of their nearness and affinity, than I could have had from mere book comparison.  I am told that Mackenzie got his vocabulary from some of the priests in Lower Canada, who are versed in the Algonquin.  It does not seem to me at all probable that an Englishman or a Scotchman should throw aside his natural sounds of the vowels and consonants, and adopt sounds which are, and must have been, from infancy, foreign.

As I intend to put down things in the order of their occurrence, I will add that I had a visitor to-day, a simple mechanic, who came to talk to me about nothing; I could do no less than be civil to him, in consequence of which he pestered me with hems and haws about one hour.  I think Job took no interest in philology.

17th.  Devoted the day to the language.  A friend had loaned me a file of Scottish papers called the Montrose Review, which I took occasion to run over.  This paper is more neatly and correctly printed than is common with our papers of this class from the country.  The strain of remark is free, bold, and inquisitive, looking to the measures of government, and advocating principles of rational liberty throughout the world.

Col.  Lawrence, Capt.  Thompson, and Lieut.  Griswold called in the course of the day.  I commenced reading Mungo Parke’s posthumous volume.

18th.  The mind, like the body, will get tired.  Quintilian remarks, “Variety refreshes and renovates the mind.”  Composition and reading by turns, wear away the weariness either may create; and though we have done many things, we in some measure find ourselves fresh and recruited at entering on a new thing.  This day has been almost entirely given up to society.  Visitors seemed to come in, as if by concert.  Col.  Lawrence, Capts.  Clarke and Beal, Lieuts.  Smith and Griswold.  Mr. S.B.  Griswold, who was one of the American hostage officers at Quebec, Dr. Foot, and Mr. Johnston came in to see me, at different times.  I filled up the intervals in reading.

19th, Sabbath.  A party of Indians came to my door singing the begging dance.  These people do not respect the Sabbath.[30] The parties who came in, on New Year’s day, still linger about the settlements, and appear to be satisfied to suffer hunger half the time, if their wants can be gratuitously relieved the other half.

[Footnote 30:  About eighteen months afterwards, I interdicted all visits of Indians on the Sabbath, and adopted it as an invariable rule, that I would not transact any business, or receive visits, from any Indian under the influence of liquor.  I directed my interpreter to tell them that the President had sent me to speak to sober men only.]