raight and well-worked road runs through the settlement, which is
about nine miles in length. This part of the country is particularly
hilly, and from where we now stand we have a view of its whole extent.
Twenty years ago a blazed track was the only path through the dense
forest to where, at its furthest extremity, one adventurous settler had
dared to raise his _log hut_. The older inhabitants, who lived only on
the margin of the rivers, laughed at the idea of clearing those high
"_back lands_" where there was neither intervale or rivers, but he
heeded them not, and his lonely hut became the nucleus of one of the
most flourishing settlements in New Brunswick. The woods have now
retreated far back from the road, and at this season the grass and grain
are so high that the stumps are all concealed. The scene is very
different to the country landscapes of England. There there are square
smooth fields enclosed with stone walls, neat white palings, or the
hawthorn hedge, scenting the breezes with its balmy "honeysuckle," or
sweet wild rose--song-birds filling the air with melody, and stately
castles, towering o'er the peasant's lowly home, while far as the eye
can reach 'twill rest but on some fair village dome or farm. Here the
worm or zigzag fence runs round the irregularly-shaped clearings, in the
same rustic garb it wore when a denizen of the forest. The wild flowers
here have no perfume, but the raspberries, which grow luxuriantly in the
spaces made by the turnings of the fences, have a sweet smell, and there
is a breath which tells of the rich strawberry far down among the
shadowy grass. The birds during the hot months of summer have no song,
but there are numbers of them, and of the brightest plumage. The fairy
humming-bird, often in size no larger than a bee, gleams through the air
like a flower with wings, and the bald eagle sits majestically on the
old grey pines, which stand like lone monuments of the past, the storms
and the lightnings having ages ago wreaked their worst upon them, and
bereft them of life and limb, yet still they stand, all lofty and
unscathed by the axe or the fire which has laid the younger forest low.
The dwellings, either the primitive log-hut, the first home of the
settler, or the more stately frame-buildings, stand each near the road,
on the verge of its own clearing, which reaches back to where the dark
woods form a back-ground to the scene. These stretch far and wide over
the land, save whe