THE LUCK TO GET GOOD LAND. 71 



Straits, and of the south-western portion of the Gulf of 

 St Lawrence, and forming thus a continuation of the red 

 lands and rocks of Prince Edward s Island. In fact, it 

 is very easy to regard this island as a fragment of the 

 ancient land which formerly extended continuously from 

 Cape Tormentine to Miscau Point, before the Gulf of 

 St Lawrence attained its present dimensions. 



Turning west from the Cape towards the mouth of 

 the Gaspereau River, which falls into the head of the 

 Bay Verte, we drove over a higher tract of stony grey- 

 sandstone country into a lower generally red district a 

 continuation of the red lands we had left, but of inferior 

 quality. Here we passed through a long Irish settle 

 ment, the first half of it chiefly Protestant, the second 

 chiefly Roman Catholic. The first part has the 

 reputation of being the more prosperous, and such was 

 certainly my own impression from what I saw. I 

 fancied, however, that, on the whole, the Protestant land 

 Avas the drier and the more easily worked, except in 

 the matter of stones, which were much more abundant 

 on many of the Protestant lots. My friend the legis 

 lator, of course, saw things with different eyes. 



We stopped about the middle of the settlement to 

 bait our horses, and, walking on in advance, I went in 

 alone into one of the poor cabins of the Catholic Irish. 

 The mother of the family, who was cleaning away the 

 fragments of the potato dinner, and was hastening to 

 help in the fields at gathering the crop, complained that 

 &quot; indeed they were not so thriving as they should have 

 been, considering the time they had been in the conn- 

 try ;&quot; and then she added the true Irish remark, &quot; them 

 people had got on well enough who had the luck^ when 

 they arrived, to get a good lot of land.&quot; 



In many places the land of these people is certainly 

 unfavourable to first crops, and to poor first settlers, 

 because of the heavy soils, the absolutely wet places, 



