assistance when attacked by the Indians, who were at one time very numerous and troublesome in this part of the country.
" The banks of the Detroit river are the Eden of Upper Canada, in so far as regards the production of fruit. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, grapes, and nectarines, attain the highest degree of per- fection there, and exceed in size, beauty, and flavour, those raised in any other part of the province. Cider abounds at the table of the meanest peasant, and there is scarcely a farm that has not a fruitful orchard attached to it. This fineness of the fruit is one consequence of the amelioration of climate, which takes place in the vicinity of the Detroit river and Lake St. Clair. The seasons there are much milder and more serene than they are a few hun- dred miles below, and the weather is likewise drier and less variable. Comparatively little snow falls during the winter, though the cold is often sufficiently intense to freeze over the Detroit river so strongly, that persons, horses, and even loaded sleighs, cross it with ease and safety. In summer the country presents a forest of blossoms, which exhale the most delicious odours ; a cloud seldom obscures the sky ; while the lakes and rivers, which extend in every direction, com- municate a reviving freshness to the air, and moderate the warmth of a dazzling sun 3 and the clearness and elasticity of the atmo- sphere render it equally healthy arid exhilarating.
" About twenty miles down the Detroit river stands the village of Sandwich, which contains thirty or forty houses, and a neat church. Below this the soil becomes rather inferior in quality, being some- what cold and swampy. The settlement is likewise partial and circumscribed, and a tract of land six miles in length, which belongs to the Huron Indians, does not contain a single inhabitant. A little above the mouth of the Detroit river, and head of Lake Erie, is the town of Amherstburgh, which forms the most westerly settle- ment in the Upper Province. The population of this place amounts to more than a thousand souls, a proportion of whom are merchants, who derive support in the way of trade from the farmers residing upon the shores of Lake Erie. Many of the inhabitants of Am- herstburgh are persons of wealth and respectability, and the circle which they collectively compose is a more refined and agreeable one than is to be met with in any other village in the province.
"The mouth of the Detroit river, in which there are several islands, forms a safe and commodious harbour. The river itself is navigable for vessels of any size ; and a chain of water communica- tion extends westward, without interruption, to the head of Lake
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