OLD FORT BAY. 89 



remember is so nearly occupied at this point with Esquimaux island, 

 that the passage between it and the mainland on the east is barely 

 large enough for small boats. The bay extends directly inward about 

 a mile, then takes a sudden turn to the right for about the same dis- 

 tance, giving to the whole the shape of a bent arm. Strange to say, 

 no stream of any size enters this large bay. A small brook only, 

 made up of the drainage of the neighboring hills, flows into it. 

 To give you an idea of the extent to which the country is cut up by 

 ponds, let me say that the distance between the end of the bay and 

 the Mission station, situated several miles up the river, near the 

 contraction in the stream just below the first rapids, is only five 

 miles ; yet there are three ways of going between the two places, 

 and each time a line of three distinct ponds is traversed, and with 

 the exception of one pond which is the first and same crossed 

 on two of the routes, no pond is traversed twice ; between all 

 of these are elevations varying often from two to three hundred feet 

 in height, though generally less than one hundred. The whole 

 country is similarly cut up into elevations and depressions whose 

 basins contain a pond, the accumulation of the drainage surround- 

 ing it. 



A single stream enters the bay from the centre of the left hand 

 side of the entrance ; it comes from a line of ponds extending 

 backward into the country, and I am informed that one of them is 

 an excellent trout pond. The most interesting point in all the bay, 

 the elbow as we will call it, remains to be spoken of. If we describe 

 it as having the appearance of two semicircles placed side by side 

 ^'-^,^^ and with an island just off the joint, we shall present a very 

 fair picture of the location. The larger of these curved 

 pieces is the elbow proper. The left hand (the larger) is a sandy 

 strip of beach with high cliffs about it, and a sloping ridge whose 

 summit is a straight line of nearly a quarter of a mile in length 

 above it. This elevation slopes gradually to the sea. Above, it 

 presents the appearance of an artificial fortification lying between 

 two high peaks, one at the left and the other at the right. The 

 top of this ridge, nearly level for some thirty or forty rods, falls 



