398 THE ElVER EESTIGOUCHE. 



visited the Restlgouche, this gentleman, by character 

 at least, is known. He was one of the first British 

 settlers in this part of the colony, and one of its most 

 energetic improvers and explorers. Mrs Ferguson was 

 the first child of British parents born upon the Resti- 

 gouche. Where there are now so many old farms, and 

 comfortably settled inhabitants, it was very interesting to 

 find the first explorers still alive, and witnesses of the 

 pleasing results of their early exertions. 



The Restigouche is here the boundary between Canada 

 and New Brunswick. Flowing from the west, it rises 

 partly in the Canadian and partly in the New Brunswick 

 highlands. It receives various tributaries, of which the 

 Upsalquitch is the most important from the New 

 Brunswick, and, six miles lower down, the Metapediac 

 from the Canadian side. Soon after the junction of the 

 latter stream, the Restigouche widens out into a 

 spacious harbour about two miles in breadth, and four- 

 and- twenty miles in length. The mouth of the harbour 

 or river is at Dalhousie, sixteen miles below Campbel- 

 ton, and it is deep and navigable for the largest ships 

 almost as far as the tide ascends, which is six miles 

 above Campbelton. It is bordered on either hand by a 

 belt eight or ten miles broad, of excellent hardwood 

 upland, resembling in quality that which I had passed 

 through on the Canadian side after I had emerged from 

 the forest. Along the river are margins of flat intervale, 

 sometimes narrowing to a mere fringe, at others 

 expanding into fertile alluvial tracts containing hundreds 

 of acres. Of the upland, the greater portion is still 

 under virgin forests ; but the flat lands, for a long way 

 up the river, are granted to actual or intending settlers, 

 aud are more or less under cultivation. Below Dalhousie 

 the harbour widens further into what is called Resti- 

 gouche Bay, and, finally, into what the early French 

 discoverers named the Baie de Chaleur. 



