Jump to content

Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/499

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
THE LABRADOR JOURNAL
443

two handsome fresh-water lakes; indeed, the country is covered with lakes, all of which are well supplied with trout. We saw the college and the common school, built of freestone, both handsome buildings. We crossed the head of the St. Croix River, which rolls its impetuous waters into the Bay of Fundy. From here to Windsor the country improved rapidly and the crops looked well. Windsor is a neat, pretty village; the vast banks of plaster of Paris all about it give employment to the inhabitants and bring wealth to the place; it is shipped from here in large quantities. Our coach stopped at the best boarding-house here, for nowhere in the Provinces have we heard of hotels; the house was full and we were conveyed to another, where, after more than two hours' delay, we had a very indifferent supper. Meantime we walked to see the Windsor River, on the east bank of which the village is situated. The view was indeed novel; the bed of the river, nearly a mile wide and quite bare as far as eye could reach,—about ten miles. Scarcely any water to be seen, and yet the spot where we stood, sixty-five feet above the river bed, showed that at high tide this wonderful basin must be filled to the brim. Opposite to us, indeed, the country is diked in, and vessels left dry at the wharves had a strange appearance. We are told that there have been instances when vessels have slid sidewise from the top of the bank to the level of the gravelly bed of the river. The shores are covered for a hundred yards with mud of a reddish color. This conveys more the idea of a flood or great freshet than the result of tide, and I long to see the waters of the ocean advancing at the rate of four knots an hour to fill this extraordinary basin; this sight I hope to enjoy to-morrow.

August 28. I can now say that I have seen the tide waters of the Bay of Fundy rise sixty-five feet.[1] We were

  1. See Episode, "The Bay of Fundy.