enforce a certain time of residence, and certain settlement duties to be
performed, allow no claims to absentees when once the land is drawn.
These laws wisely force a superiorly-educated man with resources of both
property and intellect, to devote all his energies to a certain spot of
uncleared land. It may easily be supposed that no persons would
encounter these hardships who have not a young family to establish in
the healthful ways of independence. This family renders the residence of
such a head still more valuable to the colony; and the half-pay officer,
by thus leading the advanced guard of civilization, and bringing into
these rough districts gentle and well-educated females, who soften and
improve all around them by _mental_ refinements, is serving his country
as much by founding peaceful villages and pleasant homesteads in the
trackless wilds, as ever he did by personal courage, or military
stratagem, in times of war.

It will be seen, in the course of this work, that the writer is as
earnest in recommending ladies who belong to the higher class of
settlers to cultivate all the mental resources of a superior education,
as she is to induce them to discard all irrational and artificial wants
and mere useless pursuits. She would willingly direct their attention to
the natural history and botany of this new country, in which they will
find a never-failing source of amusement and instruction, at once
enlightening and elevating the mind, and serving to fill up the void
left by the absence of those lighter feminine accomplishments, the
practice of which are necessarily superseded by imperative domestic
duties. To the person who is capable of looking abroad into the beauties
of nature, and adoring the Creator through his glorious works, are
opened stores of unmixed pleasure, which will not permit her to be dull
or unhappy in the loneliest part of our Western Wilderness. The writer
of these pages speaks from experience, and would be pleased to find that