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34 trouble—for the paths were only about half a foot wide where the snow would sustain one, and if you turned ever so little to the right or left you were in it half way up to your thighs." However, the winter season was best for traveling in the northern country, for the snow, when once packed, made the paths more even, and when the fall of snow was not too great the smooth surface of ice on river and lake offered a free passage-way unknown during the other seasons of the year. "We have twice come near dying in the roads; once it was on a frozen lake." In Canada, with rivers running practically east and west, the water-ways were the great routes of travel, and the missionaries called the land and water-ways "roads" indiscriminately: "The whole length of the road [from the Huron country to Quebec] is full of rapids and precipices." Again: " over various rivers and many lakes, which had to be reached by roads the mere remem-