374 Life of Audubon. 



president and rector reside. We crossed the head of the 

 St. Croix River, which rolls its waters impetuously into 

 the Bay of Fundy. Here the lands were all dyked, and 

 the crops looked very well, and from that river to Wind- 

 sor the country improved rapidly. 



" Windsor is a small and rather neat village, on the 

 east side of the River Windsor, and is supported by the 

 vast banks of plaster of Paris around it This valuable 

 article is shipped in British vessels to Eastport and else- 

 where in large quantities. 



" Our coach stopped at the door of the best private 

 boarding-house, for nowhere in this province have we 

 heard of hotels. The house was full, and we went to an- 

 other, where, after waiting two hours, we obtained an in- 

 different supper. The view from this village was as novel 

 to me as the coast of Labrador. The bed of the river, 

 which is here about one mile wide, was quite bare as far 

 as the eye could reach, say for ten miles, scarcely any wa- 

 ter to be seen, and yet the place where we stood was six- 

 ty-five feet above the bed, which plainly showed that at 

 high tide this wonderful basin must be filled to the brim. 

 Opposite us, and indeed the whole country, is dyked in ; 

 and vessels left dry at the great elevation, fastened to the 

 wharves, had a singular appearance. We are told that 

 now and then some vessels have slid sideways from the 

 top of the bank down to the level of the gravelly bed of 

 the river. The shores are covered for a hundred yards 

 with a reddish mud. This looks more like the result of 

 a great freshet than of a tide, and I long to see the waters 

 of the sea advancing at the rate of four knots an hour to 

 fill this basin, a sight I hope to see to-morrow." 



August 28. Here follows the description of the ex- 

 traordinary rise and fall of the waters, and they are evi- 

 dently the notes from which Audubon wrote his episode 

 of the Bay of Fundy. The day was passed in rambling 



