York and Pennsylvania, and the whole of Upper Canada, that in eight
years' residence I have not seen as many cases of the disease as I have
in a day's visit to a provincial infirmary at home. The only disease we
are annoyed with here, that we are not accustomed to at home, is the
intermittent fever,--and that, though most abominably annoying, is not
by any means dangerous: indeed, one of the most annoying circumstances
connected with it is, that, instead of being sympathized with, you are
only laughed at. Otherwise the climate is infinitely more healthy than
that of England. Indeed, it may be pronounced the most healthy country
under the sun, considering that whisky can be procured for about one
shilling sterling per gallon. Though the cold of a Canadian winter is
great, it is neither distressing nor disagreeable. There is no day
during winter, except a rainy one, in which a man need be kept from his
work. It is a fact, though as startling as some of the dogmas of the
Edinburgh school of political economy, that the thermometer is no judge
of warm or cold weather. Thus, with us in Canada, when it is low, (say
at zero,) there is not a breath of hair, and you can judge of the cold
of the morning by the smoke rising from the chimney of a cottage, and
shooting up straight like the steeple of a church, then gradually
melting away in the beautiful clear blue of the morning sky: yet in such
weather it is impossible to go through a day's march in your great coat;
whereas, at home, when the wind blows from the north-east, though the
thermometer stands at from 55° to 60° you find a fire far from
oppressive. The fact is, that a Canadian winter is by far the
pleasantest season of the year, for everybody is idle, and everybody is
determined to enjoy himself. Between the summer and winter of Canada, a
season exists, called the Indian summer. During this period, the
atmosphere has a smoky, hazy effect, which is ascribed by the people
generally to the simultaneous burning of the prairies of the western
part of the continent. This explanation I take to be absurd; since, if