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poverty, to the acquisition of considerable property in land and cattle. They have about thirty acres each under cultivation.

St. Peter's, lately named Bathurst, is the harbour of Nipisighit Bay; there is a bar across the entrance, but large brigs can load inside of it. The River Nipisighit winds and branches over a great extent of the northern part of New Brunswick. I have before observed, that it appears to be in a line of contact between a region of sandstone to the eastward, and a part of the vast granitic range of the Alleghanies. The main branch, about 100 miles in length, pis broken by a magnificent fall and several rapids; and I was informed that all the other branches rolled over falls and cataracts. The interior country is but little known; but from the information given me by the lumbering parties and Indians, its configuration presents innumerable streams, lakes, excellent lands, forests, valleys, and hills, which occasionally assume the character of mountains.

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For some years, several ships have loaded with timber at Nipisighit, the quality of which is excellent. The number of settlers in this place, many of whom are Acadian French, is not more than six hundred; but a vast population might be located advantageously on the lands watered by this river. There are two or three merchants at St. Peter's, and it is the port of entry, under St. John, for all the harbours on the south side of the Bay de Chaleur. It has a courthouse, gaol, and post-office. The shore from Nipisighit to Rustigouche is all lined with inhabitants.

1

The River Rustigouche, which separates Canada from New Brunswick, falls into a spacious harbour at the head of the Bay de Chaleur. This majestic

river, and its numerous appendant streams, branch over more than six thousand square miles of New Brunswick and Canada. The largest stream running into it from the north, is the Matapedia, rising in a lake of that name, situated in the middle of the county of Cornwallis, in Lower Canada. From one of the southern streams of the Rustigouche, the distance to the River St. John is but a few miles, and by this route the courier travels with letters to New Brunswick and to Canada. A road, to open a direct communication between the settlements on the Bay de Chaleur and Canada, by the lake Matapedia, has been contemplated. It might form a continuation of the new road from Miramichi to Nipisighit, from which a tolerable road is open to Rustigouche, and then complete the great military road projected by Sir Howard Douglas, by leading along the Matapedia, and then by the Metis to the St. Lawrence. Next to a good road from Fredericton to the St. Lawrence, I consider a road that would enable the inhabitants of the Bay de Chaleur, particularly those on the north side, to have a direct and certain intercourse with Quebec, an object of the greatest importance. To this neglected and almost forgotten, but still truly valuable part of Canada and New Brunswick, such a line of communication with Quebec is absolutely necessary. The opening of these roads would facilitate the settlement of vast tracts of fertile country, through which the Rustigouche, Matapedia, and Nipisighit Rivers flow.

The settlement of Dalhousie, laid out as a town, is prettily situated, two miles up, on the New Brunswick side of the Rustigouche. It has two or three mercantile establishments. The principal one is that conducted with much spirit by Messrs. Montgomery. The harbour is safe, and sheltered by two rather high islands. Several large timber ships are loaded here annually.

A profitable salmon-fishery has, for many years, been followed on the River Rustigouche. I have been told by those longest settled on the river, that an extraordinary annual decrease in the number of salmon frequenting it has taken place, which they account for as a consequence of its waters being much more disturbed than formerly.

The inhabitants at what may be considered the harbour of Rustigouche, and at Dalhousie on the New Brunswick side, where many of the timber ships load, and those at the settlements of Nouvelle, New Richmond, Tracadigash, and Cascapedia, consist of a mixed population of English, Scotch, Irish, Americans, and Acadian French, who employ themselves in the different occupations of fishing, hewing timber, and farming on a very humble scale.

Eighteen miles up the Rustigouche there is an Indian reserve of 1200 acres of rich land, on which the Micmacs have a chapel, and a small village of huts and wigwams, forming residences for about 200 persons, who are considered residents; but for many of them it is only a rendezvous, where they assemble for a few weeks; and then, displacing and packing up their portable habitations, and whatever else they possess, embark in their canoes for some other part of the country. There are about twenty families who are permanent residents, and own some oxen, cows, and pigs, a few fishing-boats and a shallop, besides their canoes. They raise some maize, potatoes, &c.

The land, on each side of the river Rustigouche, is high and mountainous. In some places the river appears to have actually broken through ramifications of the great chain between it and the St. Lawrence. In the valleys, and along the river where intervale lands abound, the soil is capable of producing luxuriant crops of grain, and all sorts of green crops. A vast population might be settled on these parts of New Brunswick and Lower Canada. The trees, particularly the fir tribes, grow to immense heights and sizes, and a great timber country may be opened along this river. The quality is in great repute among the timber dealers in England, especially in the port of Liverpool, and considered equal to that imported from Miramichi.

The greatest difficulty to surmount appeared to me to be the hauling or bringing it out to the rivers, as the best timber groves are in the valleys behind the mountainous ridges, which in most places follow the winding of the streams. Such, however, is the indefatigable spirit of the lumberers, that they overcome natural obstacles that stagger the resolution of all other people. They cut the timber, and haul it, in winter, to places where there is often no water, either in summer or winter; but which, they well know, will be overflown when the spring thaws dissolve the snow on the mountains and in the woods.

There are three or four timber merchants at and near Rustigouche, who have exported several cargoes of timber during the last few years. Besides the quantity of salmon used by the inhabitants and lumbering parties, a great share of the salmon caught in this river is sold to the traders, who export the same to Quebec, Halifax, or direct to the West Indies.

BONAVENTURE.

CHAP. IX.

DISTRICT OF GASPE.

NEW CARLISLE. - PASPABIAC. PERCÉ. GASPÈ. - WHALE-FISHERS, ETC.

ALTHOUGH the country between the Bay de Chaleur and the River St. Lawrence, forming the district of Gaspè, is in Lower Canada, I continue its description in this part of the work from the connection that subsists between one part of the bay and another.*

The River of Bonaventure, on the north side of the bay, is about thirty miles below Rustigouche. It rises in a fine lake about forty miles in the interior, and flows rapidly through a richly wooded country to its débouché, where there is a small harbour, which at high water will admit brigs of two hundred tons; and on each side of which there is a thicklysettled population of industrious Acadian French. These people have much simplicity in their manners, and strangers always meet with kindness and hospitality among them. They are principally engaged in the herring and cod fisheries; next to which, they derive considerable assistance from the cultivation of the soil. They build boats and fishing vessels