ICE-HOLES IN THE NORTH MOUNTAINS.

29

to St John did not sail till Monday; so that I had two days to amuse myself in this neighbourhood. Part of one of these I spent in crossing the bay, and climbing the North Mountains, to visit a spot where I had been told that ice was to be met with all the year round. The day was hot, and the hill steep, and when we were fairly in the woods, I occasionally, for a short cut, forsook my guide and the trail, and fell among windfalls, so that I was not a little pleased when he announced our arrival at the spot. A windfall, in the English sense, usually means a bit of good luck; but when an Englishman gets into an American forest, he will soon unlearn this home sense of the term, and come to class it among unlucky events, with the occurrence of an alder swamp or a Carriboo bog.

The spot we had come to was a kind of notch in the side and summit of the mountain, where angular fragments and rocky masses of trap were piled one upon another, a little runner flowing down the centre of the notch. The whole was overgrown with mixed timber, chiefly hardwood, the roots of the trees fixing themselves wherever a holding-place among the stones was to be found. At various spots a freezing cold air was felt to issue from among the stones; and, on digging under the fallen leaves among the stony crevices, we succeeded in obtaining some lumps of ice, which, with the water of the brook and a little brandy-a prohibited drink in these parts-formed a refreshing beverage after our fatiguing ascent. This locality resembles those which have been described in different parts of Europe, where ice occurs, even in hot weather, among masses of collected rocky fragments. The air proceeds most probably from caverns in the mountain, which are filled with ice during the long and severe winters of this latitude, and are rarely melted by the warm air that enters them even during a hot and protracted summer.

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ORES AND IRON-WORKS ON BEAR RIVER.

I heard many complaints of the excessive drought in

this part of the province.

hay are in the habit, in

Parties who are badly off for ordinary years, of sending to

those who have hay to spare, three cattle at the beginning of winter, to receive back two in spring. This year five were already spoken of to get back three, and higher payments might become necessary.

The Bay of Annapolis is about twenty miles long, and at the foot of it stands the town of Digby. Several rivers flow into it from the South Mountains, among which the Moose river is distinguished by the occurrence of deposits of iron ore a few miles above its mouth. Another deposit of the same ore occurs on the Nictau river, which descends from the same mountains into the valley, about half-way between Cornwallis and Annapolis. Both ores are very rich, and that of Nictau abounds in casts of Silurian fossils.

Some years ago a company was formed for the purpose of mining and smelting these ores; and buildings were erected at the mouth of Bear River, where the manufacture was established and carried on. But differences arose among the partners, and the works were stopped. The site of the works is ten or twelve miles below Annapolis; and I was indebted to the kindness of Dr Leslie— a Scotchman possessed of the perfervidum ingenium of his country both in heart and head-for driving me to the spot. The site appeared to be well chosen, especially for convenience of shipment. There were also heaps of ore, and many tons of unfinished blooms, lying in the crumbling buildings, showing how summarily operations had been stopped. The furnaces and workshops were already falling to ruin, for want of that stitch in time with which masons, as well as tailors, can keep things in repair at a small expense. The locality is admirably adapted for the supply of iron to the markets of the two provinces, and of the Atlantic States; and if the adjoining

HANDINESS OF THE NOVA SCOTIANS.

31

forests yield fuel abundantly, and at a cheap rate, a prudently managed manufactory of malleable iron ought here to succeed.

I could not help sympathising with my friend the Doctor, when he discoursed of the extreme healthiness of the Annapolis district. Though he is the only medical man for sixteen miles one way and fifteen another, a fortnight will often elapse without a single summons. Were it not that the population increases, and that bones break sometimes, medicine and surgery might be banished the country.

The Nova Scotians have the reputation of being superlatively handy. "What will I do now?" issues from the mouth of a despairing Irishman; but with the emergency the resource not only springs up in the head, but actually rushes to the hands, of the Nova Scotian.

A farmer on the South Mountains will cut down lumber on his farm, and will convey it with his own horses to the shores of the bay. With or without the aid of a carpenter, he will lay down the lines of a ship. He will build it himself, with the help of his sons; he will even do the smith's work with his own hands. He will mortgage his farm to buy the materials, and will rig it himself. He will then load it with firewood from his own farm, and himself sail the ship to Boston, and sell cargo or ship, or both; or he will take a freight thence to the West Indies, if he can get it, and return in due time to pay off his encumbrances-or to sell his farm, if he have been unsuccessful, and begin the world anew. If the world were really to make up its mind to hang those who have no shifts, a vast number of our Irish fellowsubjects would be the first to taste the cord. The last survivor would be a Nova Scotian, unless, indeed, it were his fate to be strangled by my friend and subsequent fellow-traveller, Mr Brown of New Brunswick, of whose shiftiness I shall have occasion to speak in the sequel.

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22

PROVINCIALISMS OF NOVA SCOTIA.

On the Sunday I attended service in the Episcopal church, and heard a sermon preached with a nasal twang so perfect that I guessed the preacher must be a Yankee. I was afterwards mortified to learn that he was a native of St John in New Brunswick; but I can honestly say for New England, that neither in the pulpit nor out of it did I meet, during my subsequent stay in the States, with any one so handy at speaking through his nose as this unhappy preacher of Annapolis.

The readers of Sam Slick naturally expect to hear many provincial expressions when they come to Nova Scotia. I was on the look-out for them; but whether it was that I did not fall in with any of the real blue-noses, or that the Queen's English is really better used than I had been led to expect, I scarcely heard a single peculiarity of expression during my stay in the province. Occasional guessings there were as to things which the guesser knew perfectly well-as when a man guessed his own age or his daughter's to be so-and-so, and the not unfrequent use of "admire" instead of "wonder at;" but what are these compared with our county provincialisms?

The

On Monday morning, the 13th of August, I embarked in the steamer for St John in New Brunswick. weather was fine till we passed through the Digby Gut, and were fairly into the Bay of Fundy. A cross sea tossed us a little at the mouth of the gut, and by-andby the fogs, and finally the rains and gusts of this bay, assailed us. The steamer was a poor affair, and among other freight had some sheep on board, for which the farmers of the Cornwallis and Annapolis districts find a ready market at St John. The breadth of the passage is about forty-five miles, which we accomplished by four in the afternoon; when I landed at St John, and took up my quarters in the hotel.

CHAPTER II.

Area and population of New Brunswick.-The lumber-trade, its benefits and evils.—It retarded and discouraged farming. -Emigration caused by a crisis in this trade.—City of St John.---Diminution in its import trade and in the provincial revenue.-Apprehensions as to the ability of the province to sustain its population.-River St John.-Rich river flats.—Average produce of Queen's and Sunbury counties.-City of Fredericton.-Farm on the St John.-Intervale land, its different qualities and values.-Emigration fever.-Indian corn as a fodder crop in England.-Opinion as to farming with paid labour.-Woodstock.-Quality and value of land in its neighbourhood.-Exhausting culture of first settlers. Farming on Shares. - Charivari of the Mickeys of Woodstock.- Farm at Jacksontown. - Speculators in land.-Iron ore and iron smelting.-Itinerant lecturers.-Mouths of the Tobique and Aroostook rivers.-Potato breakfasts and meals in common.-Sowing of winter wheat on newly cleared land only.Rust and wheat fly, remedy for.-Mellicete Indians on the Tobique. -Irish settlement and thriving settlers. Healthiness of the province.-Grand falls and town of Colebrook.

BEFORE my departure from England, I had been invited by the Governor and House of Assembly of New Brunswick to visit that province, with the view of drawing up a report, to be presented to his Excellency and the Legislature, in reference to its agricultural capabilities. I had undertaken this task without very clearly understanding the nature of the duty, or of the country, and in the hope that it would not seriously interfere with my other plans in visiting the American continent. On my arrival, however, I very soon found that the extent of the province,

VOL. I.

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