120 NOVA SCOTIA. 



of localities and means of access, the excuse need not be 

 plead in future. 



I make little mention of trout because they abound every- 

 where, not only in the tributaries of rivers named, but in 

 other rivers where there are no salmon, though the Musquo- 

 doboit and Shubenacadie are much fished. 



Within a radius of twenty miles around Halifax, trout and 

 salmon fishing can be enjoyed in every phase which the gen- 

 tle art is capable of assuming. Some of the conditions are 

 so incongruous as to be startling in their effect. For in- 

 stance, who ever thought of putting salmon and negroes in 

 juxtaposition? One would as soon think of associating 

 sugar-cane and Esquimaux. Yet if the angler will make 

 up his little party of Haligonian friends, stow his tackle 

 and hampers in the tail of a dog-cart, and drive out twenty 

 miles to Pockwock Lake, he will not only be rewarded with a 

 full basket of trout, but he will pass, for fully one-half the 

 distance, through a settlement of negroes as decidedly Afri- 

 can as the West Indian ancestors from whom they are de- 

 scended. This settlement is called Hammond Plains, and 

 there are two others like unto it in Xova Scotia ; for be it 

 known that this Province has its colonies of negroes as well 

 as of English, French, Germans, Scotch, Irish, and Indians, 

 each of which preserves its characteristic identity in a re- 

 markable degree. Each is clannish, keeping aloof from the 

 others, except as the intercourse of trade compels, and re- 

 taining some national and distinctive peculiarities of dress, 

 customs, and manner of living. On market-days in Halifax, 

 representatives of each can be seen mingling together, offering 

 for sale their representative wares, but still gathered in iso- 

 lated groups of their own kith and kind. At the Pockwock 

 Lake negro boatmen are at hand to render their services, 

 and when the day's sport is over, the angler can bestow him- 

 self in comfortable lodgings especially provided for members 

 of the craft. 



At the Dartmouth Lakes, six miles from Halifax, are trout, 



