86 ALONG THE HILLSBOROUGII. 



behind them ! They came to the coast on 

 purpose, we may suppose. Well, the red- 

 men are gone, but the oyster-beds remain ; 

 and if winter refugees continue to pour in 

 this direction, as doubtless they will, they 

 too will eat a " heap " of oysters (it is easy 

 to see how the vulgar Southern use of that 

 word may have originated), and in the 

 course of time, probably, the shores of the 

 Halifax and the Hillsborough will be a fine 

 mountainous country ! And then, if this 

 ancient, nineteenth-century prediction is re- 

 membered, the highest peak of the range 

 will perhaps be named in a way which the 

 innate modesty of the prophet restrains him 

 from specifying with greater particularity. 



Meanwhile it is long to wait, and tourists 

 and residents alike must find what comfort 

 they can in the lesser hills which, thanks to 

 the good appetite of their predecessors, are 

 already theirs. For my own part, there is 

 one such eminence of which I cherish the 

 most grateful recollections. It stands (or 

 stood ; the road-makers had begun carting 

 it away) at a bend in the road just south of 

 one of the Turnbull canals. I climbed it 

 often (it can hardly be less than fifteen or 



