226 * INTERCOLONIAL RAILROAD. 



their native place. The sons and daughters cluster round 

 the parental homestead. The farms are divided and sub- 

 divided. They always remain poor, but their wants are 

 small, and they are as contented as obliging, and withal as 

 gay and lively a set of people as there are in the world. 

 They are eminently a social people. This even the tourist 

 can note by the arrangement of the houses which are 

 all close together, like a street along the road that runs 

 down the soutTi shore of the St. Lawrence from Quebec to 

 St. Flavie. The farms are mere strips or ribbons of land, 

 a few yards in width, with the house in front, and running 

 back a mile or even more in rear. There are some pretty 

 villages in this district, such as Rimouski and Eiviere du 

 Loup ; also two or three fashionable watering places, such 

 as Cocouna and Metis, whither Upper Canadians resort in 

 July and August for sea-bathing. The houses of the French 

 habitants are all built on the same pattern wide overhang- 

 ing eaves, clean white walls, and gaily painted windows 

 and doors. Near each house there is a well, with the old- 

 fashioned arrangement of balance pole and bucket ; also 

 queer brick or blue clay ovens supported on wooden legs, 

 that look like immense turtles. I can testify to the ex- 

 cellence of the bread they bake. The process is to light 

 a fire inside the oven, and when the whole structure is 

 thoroughly heated the cinders are swept out, the dough 

 put in, and the aperture closed, the bread being cooked by 

 the heat of the bricks and clay. 



After leaving St. Flavie, the Intercolonial plunges into 

 the wilderness, and from thence to the Eestigouche runs 

 through one of the wildest and most uninhabitable districts 

 in all Canada. The scenery here would be very fine were 



