some exceptions must be
taken to the early sun in this latitude. To get up at two o'clock or four;
to ride thirty or forty miles to breakfast, with a convalescent appetite,
is painful. But yet, "to him, who in the love of Nature holds communion
with her visible forms, she speaks a various language." Admiration and
convalescent hunger make a very good team in this beautiful country. You
look out upon the unfathomable Gulf of St. Lawrence, and feel as if you
were an unfathomable gulf yourself. You ride through lofty woods, with a
tantalizing profusion of living edibles in your path; at every moment a
cock-rabbit is saying his prayers before the horses; at every bosk and
bole a squirrel stares at you with unwinking eyes, and Robin Yellow-bill
hops, runs, and flies before the coach within reach of the driver's whip,
_sans peur_! And this too is the land of moose and cariboo: here the
hunters, on snow-shoes, track the huge animals in the season; and moose
and cariboo, in the Halifax markets, are cheaper than beef with us. And to
think this place is only a four days' journey from the metropolis, in the
languid winter! By the ashes of Nimrod, I will launch myself on a pair of
snow-shoes, and shoot a moose in the snow before I am twelve months
older, as sure as these ponies carry us to breakfast!

"How far are we from breakfast, driver?"

"Twenty miles," quoth Jehu.

Now I had been anxious to get a sight of our ponies, for the sake of
estimating their speed and endurance; but at this time they were not in
sight. For the coach we (three passengers) were in, was built like an
omnibus-sleigh on wheels, with a high seat and "dasher" in front, so that
we could not see what it was that drew our ark, and therefore I climbed up
in the driver's perch to overlook our motors. There were four of them;
little, shaggy, black ponies, with bunchy manes and fetlocks, not much
larger than Newfoundland dogs. Yet they swept us along the road as rapidly
as if they were full-sized horses, up hill and down, without visible signs
of fatigue. And now we passed through another French settlement,
"Tracadie," and again the Norman kirtle and petticoat of the pastoral,
black-eyed Evangelines hove in sight, and passed like a day-dream. And
here we are in an English settlement, where we enjoy a substantial
breakfast, and then again ride through the primeval woods, with an
occasional glimpse of the broad Gulf and its mountain scenery, until we
come upon a pr