tone, at his end of the room.

"I must premise," began Villiers, addressing himself to
the attentively listening De Courcy, "that such is the
mania for dancing in this country, scarcely any obstacle
is sufficient to deter a Canadian lady, particularly a
French Canadian, from indulging in her favorite amusement.
It is, therefore, by no means unusual to see women drawn
in sleighs over drifting masses of ice, with chasms
occasionally occurring of from fifteen to twenty feet;
and that at a moment when, driven by wind and current,
the huge fragments are impelled over each other with a
roar that can only be likened to continuous thunder,
forming, in various directions, lofty peaks from which
the sun's rays are reflected in a thousand fantastic
shades and shapes. On these occasions the sleighs, or
carioles, are drawn, not as otherwise customary, by the
fast trotting little horses of the country, but by expert
natives whose mode of transport is as follows: A strong
rope is fastened to the extremity of the shafts, and into
this the French Canadian, buried to the chin in his
blanket coat, and provided with a long pole terminating
in an iron hook, harnesses himself, by first drawing the
loop of the cord over the back of his neck, and then
passing it under his arms--In this manner does he traverse
the floating ice, stepping from mass to mass with a
rapidity that affords no time for the detached fragment
to sink under the weight with which it is temporarily
laden--As the iron-shod runners obey the slightest
impulsion, the draught is light; and the only fatigue