SMUGGLING ON THE BORDERS. 1G1 



exaggeration, but there is no dispute, I believe, as to 

 the fact that taxation, in all the States, is very much 

 higher than in any of the British provinces. 



Considerable smuggling of other kinds goes on along 

 this river. It would be hard, indeed, to prevent it 

 without a very large staff of officers. Flour is 

 smuggled over from the western side, and British goods 

 after having paid the Provincial duties of 8-| per cent 

 from the eastern side. A good deal of reciprocal 

 smuggling appears to be connived at on both sides of the 

 border, and it would probably be difficult to say which 

 shore has the advantage. 



This forenoon was very wet and disagreeable, so that 

 I could not take an extensive drive round the country, 

 as I had intended. I was able, however, to make a 

 short tour of six miles up the river, to what is called 

 Upper Milltown ; and, crossing the river there, to return 

 down the Maine side to Calais. The land was generally 

 a yellowish clay, covered with granite boulders. When 

 once cleared, few stones come again within reach of the 

 plough * but many fields I saw must have cost much 

 time and labour to clear. Until drainage is introduced, 

 these soils, even when cleared of stones, will always be 

 difficult and uncertain to till. A whitish cold clay fills 

 also the bottoms of the many small valleys or hollows 

 with which this part of Charlotte County abounds. 

 Being impervious, it there forms cedar and alder swamps, 

 with mixed scrub-pine and hacmatac. I found it also 

 in the low flat patches of intervale which bound the 

 river below St Stephens. No shells were visible in it ; 

 but it had much resemblance to the post-tertiary clays of 

 the river St Lawrence, and is probably of the same age. 

 This clay struck me as peculiar to this part of New 

 Brunswick. The soil it forms is almost as difficult and 

 untractable, and certainly requires more skill to manage 



VOL. JI. L 



