ntures of daring sailors of various nationalities on the
Pacific coast, or in the story of the descent of the Fraser by the
Scotch fur-trader who first followed it to the sea, and gave it the
name which it still justly bears.

The history of the Western and Central regions of the Dominion is given
briefly towards the end of this {18} narrative, as it forms a national
sequence or supplement to that of the Eastern divisions, Acadia and
Canada, where France first established her dominion, and the
foundations were laid for the present Canadian confederation. It is
the story of the great Eastern country that I must now tell in the
following pages.

[1] The first terrace, named after Lord Durham, was built on the
foundations of the castle. In recent years the platform has been
extended and renamed Dufferin, in honour of a popular governor-general.

[2] _Akade_ means a place or district in the language of the Micmacs or
Souriquois, the most important Indian tribe in the Eastern provinces,
and is always united with another word, signifying some natural
characteristic of the locality. For instance, the well-known river in
Nova Scotia, _Shubenacadie_ (Segebun-akade), the place where the
ground-nut or Indian potato grows. [Transcriber's note: In the
original book, "Akade" and "Segebun-akade" contain Unicode characters.
In "Akade" the lower-case "a" is "a-breve", in "Segebun" the vowels are
"e-breve" and "u-breve", and in "akade" the first "a" is "a-macron" and
the second is "a-breve".]

[3] Sir J. W. Dawson, _Salient Points in the Science of the Earth_, p.
99.

[4] H. H. Bancroft, _British Columbia_, p. 38.

{19}

II.

THE DAWN OF DISCOVERY IN CANADA.

(1497-1525.)

On one of the noble avenues of the modern part of the city of Boston,
so famous in the political and intellectual life of America, stands a
monument of bronze which some Scandinavian and historical enthusiasts
have raised to the memory of Leif, son of Eric the Red, who, in the
first year of the eleventh century, sailed from Greenland where his
father, an Icelandic jarl or earl, had founded a settlement. This
statue represents the sturdy, well-proportioned figure of a Norse
sailor just discovering the new lands with which the Sagas or poetic
chronicles of the North connect his name. At the foot of the pedestal
the artist has placed the dragon's head which always stood on the prow
of the Norsemen's ships, and pictures of which can still be s