246 RIVER LIFE. 



is almost perpendicular. As it is the highest point in its vicin- 

 ity, the prospect commands a great extent of territory. Imme- 

 diately beneath stretch the vast forests of which the adjacent 

 country is composed, whose undulatory swells, ' clothed with the 

 somber evergreen of the Fir, Spruce, Hemlock, and Pine, and the 

 lighter green of the Beech, the Birch, and Maple, resembling, 

 while they exceed, the stupendous waves of the ocean.' About 

 twenty-five miles north, on the St. John's, we come to the Grand 

 Falls, where the river passes, greatly contracted, " between rug- 

 ged cliffs, overhung with trees, sweeping along a descent of sev- 

 eral feet with fearful impetuosity, until the interruption of a 

 ridge of rocks changes the hitherto unbroken volume into one vast 

 body of turbulent foam, which thunders over a perpendicular 

 precipice, about fifty feet in height, into a deep vortex among 

 huge black rocks, when the St. John's rolls out impetuously 

 through a channel still more confined in width over a succession 

 of falls for about a mile, the cliffs here overhanging the river so 

 much as to conceal it." 



" When the sun's rays fall upon the mists and spray perpetu- 

 ally rising from the cataract, a gorgeous iris is seen floating in 

 the air, waving its rich colors over the white foam, and forming 

 a beautiful contrast with the somber rocks, covered with dark 

 cedars and pines, which overhang the abyss." 



" The St. John's is much broader above the falls than it is be- 

 low ; and there are but few rapids, and none of them dangerous 

 to navigate." About thirty miles above the falls we come to the 

 ' Madawaska settlement, the population of which is estimated at 

 three thousand souls.' " Most of the settlers are French neutrals 

 or Acadians, who were driven by British violence from their 

 homes in Nova Scotia (called by the French Acadia) on the 17th 

 of July, 1775. These people at first established themselves above 

 Fredericton, and subsequently removed above the Grand Falls, 

 and effected this settlement. The Acadians are a very peculiar 



