To the woods!—­to the woods!—­&c.

  Come, chop away, lads! the wild woods resound,
    Let your quick-falling strokes in due harmony ring;
  See, the lofty tree shivers—­it falls to the ground! 
    Now with voices united together we’ll sing—­
  To the woods!—­to the woods!—­The sun shines bright,
    The smoke rises high in the clear frosty air;
  Our axes are sharp, and our hearts are light,
    Let us toil while we can and drive away care,
      And drive away care.

J.W.D.M.

CHAPTER XII

THE VILLAGE HOTEL

  Well, stranger, here you are all safe and sound;
    You’re now on shore.  Methinks you look aghast,—­
  As if you’d made some slight mistake, and found
    A land you liked not.  Think not of the past;
  Your leading-strings are cut; the mystic chain
    That bound you to your fair and smiling shore
  Is sever’d now, indeed.  ’Tis now in vain
    To sigh for joys that can return no more.

Emigration, however necessary as the obvious means of providing for the increasing population of early-settled and over-peopled countries, is indeed a very serious matter to the individual emigrant and his family.  He is thrown adrift, as it were, on a troubled ocean, the winds and currents of which are unknown to him.  His past experience, and his judgment founded on experience, will be useless to him in this new sphere of action.  In an old country, where generation after generation inhabits the same spot, the mental dispositions and prejudices of our ancestors become in a manner hereditary, and descend to their children with their possessions.  In a new colony, on the contrary, the habits and associations of the emigrant having been broken up for ever, he is suddenly thrown on his own internal resources, and compelled to act and decide at once; not unfrequently under pain of misery or starvation.  He is surrounded with dangers, often without the ordinary means which common-sense and prudence suggest of avoiding them,—­because the experience on which these common qualities are founded is wanting.  Separated for ever from those warm-hearted friends, who in his native country would advise or assist him in his first efforts, and surrounded by people who have an interest in misleading and imposing upon him, every-day experience shows that no amount of natural sagacity or prudence, founded on experience in other countries, will be an effectual safeguard against deception and erroneous conclusions.