niggers." But he could not afford the expense of a window, even of the
Siberian kind!

Ten or fifteen miles above this village we reached Mihalofski,
containing a hundred houses and three or four hundred inhabitants.
From the river this town appeared quite pretty and thriving; the
houses were substantially built, and many had flower gardens in front
and neat fences around them. Between the town and the river there were
market gardens in flourishing condition, bearing most of the
vegetables in common use through the north. The town is along a ridge
of easy ascent, and most of the dwellings are thirty or forty feet
above the river. Its fields and gardens extend back from the river
wherever the land is fertile and easiest cleared of the forest. On the
opposite side of the river there are meadows where the peasants engage
in hay cutting. The general appearance of the place was like that of
an ordinary village on the lower St. Lawrence, though there were many
points of difference.

In several rye fields the grain had been cut and stacked. Near our
landing was a mill, where a man, a boy, and a horse were manufacturing
meal at the rate of seven poods or 280 pounds a day. The whole
machinery was on the most primitive scale.

Entering the house of the mill-owner I found the principal apartment
quite neat and well arranged, its walls being whitewashed and
decorated with cheap lithographs and wood-cuts. Among the latter were
several from the Illustrated London News and _L'Illustration
Universelle_. The sleeping room was fitted with bunks like those on
steamboats, though somewhat wider. There was very little clothing on
the beds, but several sheepskin coats and coverlids were hanging on a