BEAUTY OF THE VALE OF SUSSEX. 121 



to Macleod's at the end of the portage, and as many 

 more to Sheck's in the Yale of Sussex, along the bottom 

 of which the Salmon Biver flows. The country through 

 Tvhich the road ran was very parched ; the soil sandy 

 and gravelly, as red sandstone soils often are, but 

 mixed with frequent tracts of more useful land. Ex- 

 tensive flats occurred also, upon which, as w^e passed 

 over them, a wilderness of scrub and other pines pre- 

 vailed; while the high lands in the distance were covered 

 with the cheering broad-leaved foliage of hardwood 

 trees. 



The ridges which on either hand border the Salmon 

 River open out as we approach Sussex Vale, and aff'ord 

 space for a broad valley, into which the traveller looks 

 down as he approaches by the high road, and is at once 

 struck with the scenery as among the finest of its kind 

 anywhere to be seen in the province of New Brunswick. 

 The whole valley is cleared and under culture. It is stud- 

 ded with rounded knolls and ridges of drifted sand and 

 gravel, the wrecks of the sandstones out of which the 

 valley has been scooped. On either hand the ground rises 

 into wooded hills and low mountains, rounded, as such 

 red rocks usually are ; while the river flowing through 

 the bottom of the valley, among scattered farms and 

 villages, and churches, and receiving tributaries from 

 every gorge, completes a picture which, when the crops 

 are ripe, as they now were, is very cheering and home- 

 like to look upon in an unsubdued country like this. On 

 the present, as well as on a subsequent occasion, when I 

 visited the Yale of Sussex, my impression was, that I 

 had seen few parts of the province which I should prefer 

 as a place of permanent settlement to the neighbourhood 

 of this beautiful valley. 



The air was thick with smoke as we drove down the 

 valley towards our intended quarters ; fires were burning 

 in the woods in every direction, and from one spot I 



