CHAPTER XIV.

Leave Mitis for the Restigouche.-Nature of the road through the forest.-Clearings and accommodation by the way.-Mountainous character of the country.-Frazer's.-Elevated table-land.-Great Metapediac Lake.-Rich flat land around it.-Brechut's.-Little Metapediac Lake.—John Low's.—Rough road.—Dark night.—Burned forests. Burned bridges.-Cause of the burnings. Their effect on the landscape and on the soil.-Noble's.-Evans's Hollow.-Solitary life in the forest.-Hardwood ridges.-First green fields and clearings. Home thoughts and associations.-Scottish settlers twelve hundred feet above the sea.-How such spots become known at home.-Beautiful scenery.-Fine land and farms.-Dixon's.-Abundant wheat a thousand feet above the sea.-Yankee phrenologists, soapmakers, and other adventurers; their luck in the provinces.— Campbelton. Mr Ferguson of Atholl House.-Changes in a new country during a single lifetime.—River Restigouche.—Good land on either side.-Excursion up the river.- Flat lands.-Views on the river.-Scottish settlers from Arran.-General prosperity of these settlers.-Attachment to home recollections.-Goatfell.-Ilfracombe and the Causeyside. — Good land on the Upper Restigouche. Alleged home ignorance of provincial geography. — Similar real ignorance in the colonies.-Indian settlement opposite Campbelton. -Progress of the Indians in farming.—Their winter employments.— Want of a school.-Sugar-loaf Mountain, and the view from it.— Geological reason for the quality of the land.-Good land on the Canadian side, in the county of Bonaventure.-Agricultural societies in this remote region.-Encouragement given to such societies by the Canadian Legislature.-Agricultural show on the Restigouche. Prosperity of the lumber trade on this river.-Historical recollections of the river and bay.-Old French settlements.-Town of Dalhousie. -Increase in the growth of wheat in this district.—High price of Canadian flour.-Fossiliferous limestone at Dalhousie.-Settlers on the Eel River.-Their prosperity.-Great success of the potato culture. Supposed superiority of the lumberer over the farmer.— Greater value of the resident farmer to the province.-Effects of a

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failing lumber-trade on the permanent welfare of the country. — Illustration of certain social and domestic differences between the United States and the colonies.

OCTOBER 6.-Having yesterday arranged with a habitant, bearing the illustrious name of Dumas, to convey me across the peninsula of Gaspé for £5 currency, I rose from a short sleep at one o'clock this morning, and, after a drive of three miles inland from Mitis-for a considerable part of the way over a bog, upon a fearful corduroy road-reached the house of Dumas. Having transferred myself and luggage into the waggon I was to occupy for the next two days, we ascended a hill which separated us from all further communication, even by sight, with the river St Lawrence, and in about half-an-hour had entered the forest. Under the shadow of perpetual trees we continued, from this point, for a distance of eighty miles, emerging only to come within sight of the river Restigouche.

This road between the two rivers is a very rude and difficult one. It is barely blocked out of sufficient width to allow a waggon with one horse to pass. The trees are cut down and hauled off, boulder-stones and small inequalities removed, and bridges built where they are absolutely necessary. Only the horses of the country, which all their lives have been trained to it, could conduct even light waggons across the numerous steep hills over which the road passes. I had been told in New Brunswick that the road was impassable for carriages, and that my portmanteau would have to be carried, while I walked on foot myself a considerable part of the way; and I did think that my luggage, my conductor, and myself were a very heavy load for the little Canadian horse, till I afterwards saw other horses compelled to drag at least twice the load along the same road.

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STATIONS ON THE KEMPT ROAD.

The traverse from Mitis to Campbelton is usually accomplished, in these light waggons, in three days. By starting at the early hour of one in the morning, I was enabled to perform the entire journey by the evening of the second day, and thus to avoid the disagreeables of two ensuing nights of wilderness accommodation.

The houses met with in the forest are very few, and their relative distances nearly as follows:

To Frazer's, a log-hut attached to a small clearance in the wood, is from Mitis about seventeen miles.

To Brechut's-a house and clearing on the Metapediac Lake. In this house there is one inferior bed for strangers. When I passed, it was inhabited by three men, without any female. A change of horses can sometimes be got here, but it is not to be depended on, and could not have been got at the time of my visit. Nine miles.

To John Low's-a log-hut and small clearing on the Little Metapediac Lake, inhabited by John Low and his wife-eighteen miles.

This man was about to remove to a new clearance he was making five or six miles nearer Brechut's; while a son of the latter was to settle in Low's house, on the little lake, so that future travellers will probably find more settlers along this road than it was my fortune to meet with.

To Noble's-a larger house, better provided than Brechut's, and where a night may be spent, as my conductor said, "sans grand misère "-eight miles. To Evans' a solitary resident in a log-hut, in a wild small hollow of flattish land, surrounded by high, steep, pine-timbered mountains, almost precipices, on the banks of the White River, as it is called by the Canadians-twenty miles.

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To the nearest clearing from this towards the Restigouche, on fine hardwood land, twelve hundred feet above the level of the sea-twelve miles. To Dixon's a clean and comfortable inn kept by a Scotchman, Mr Dixon, surveyor of the road, mailcontractor, and the owner of eight hundred acres of excellent land, in one of the most beautifully picturesque situations in all Canada—four miles. To the Restigouche ferry-a rapid descent from Dixon's to the river-eight miles.

The whole distance being about 100 miles, during 80 of which the road runs through a continuous, almost untraversed forest. With the single exception of the postman in his one-horse car, who passes along once a-week, we did not meet a single individual the whole way through the forest.

The first five leagues, as far as Frazer's, were exceedingly mountainous and difficult. I have already described the interior country of Lower Canada, bordering the St Lawrence, as consisting of a series of ridges running parallel with the river, and separated by intervening more or less narrow valleys. Such is the country as far as Frazer's. It is a prolongation of the New England mountains towards the promontory of Gaspé-a succession of steep climbs and difficult descents, the latter being often not less painful and oppressive to the horse than the former.

Frazer's is situated at the commencement of a tableland, which extends for nearly three leagues, forming the best and most easy part of the whole Kempt Road. From this table-land, a long gentle descent brought us down to the level of the Metapediac Lake, on the edge of which stood the house and farm of Brechut.

Around this lake there is much flat land—generally, so far as I could see, either a stiffish light-coloured clay, or more or less soft, wet, and black swamp.

All, however, is covered with wood, with the exception of some of the drier parts at the one end, which Brechut has cleared and brought into cultivation. Blocks of limestone are scattered about the shores of the lake; and the same rock, resting upon a white sandstone, occurs in situ along its south-western border. This limestone contains fossils, and is considered, by Mr Murray of the Canadian Geological Survey, to be an extension of the limestone formation which, with intermixed, often greenish calcareous shales, forms stupendous sea-cliffs, 700 feet in height, at Gaspé Promontory, and, altogether, attains a thickness of 2000 feet. I had not an opportunity of ascertaining whether the age of this limestone had been exactly made out by Mr Murray, but the fossils he mentions indicate that this extensive calcareous formation of Gaspé is closely related to the Helderberg series of the New York geologists.

If such be the age of this limestone, a belt of very good land ought to extend in a north-east and southwesterly direction, from Gaspé Promontory, through this part of Lower Canada. From what I saw of the borders of the lake, it appeared to me certain that, wild as it now looks, and remotely as it is situated, the time will yet arrive when drainage and the use of lime will make fertile wheat-land of the flat country which fringes this extensive sheet of water. A natural outlet for its produce exists down the Metapediac River, to the Restigouche on the south; and should the road be improved towards the north, by following the course of the streams instead of crossing all the ridges, as the Kempt Road does, the access to the St Lawrence will be made at least equally easy. A grant of 50,000 selected acres here now, would be a fine fortune for a family some three generations hence.

About nine in the morning we arrived at Brechut's, and, after breakfasting, and resting our horse for an