MOOSE HUNTING. 91 



small disgust of Mr. Cope and those of his race in the 

 same interest. 



Joe said that in the country we were going to hunt, 

 every train might be distinctly heard as it passed ; " and 

 yet/' said he, "the poor brutes of moose don't seem to 

 mind it much ; they know it can't hurt them." 



A settler's waggon took our party over an execrable 

 road to the foot of Indian Lake. It had been raining 

 heavily all the morning, and we turned in to warm our- 

 selves at the settler's shanty, whilst the old Indian went 

 off by a path through the dripping bushes to his camp, 

 for the purpose of sending his canoe for me. This, and 

 a few scattered houses in the neighbourhood, was called 

 the Wellington settlement ; and here, as at the Ham- 

 mond's Plains settlement, which we had passed through 

 that morning, the principal occupation of the inhabitants 

 seemed to be in making barrels for the fishery trade. 

 They make them very compact, as they are intended for 

 herring or mackerel in pickle. The staves are spruce, 

 and are bound with bands of birch. The barrel is sold for 

 a trifle more than an English shilling. The Hammond's 

 Plains people are all blacks, a miserable race, descendants 

 of those who were landed in Nova Scotia at the conclu- 

 sion of the American war in 1815. Their wretchedness 

 in winter is extreme, and in the summer they earn a hand- 

 to-mouth livelihood by bringing in to the Halifax market 

 a few vegetables grown in the small cleared patches 

 round their dwellings, bunches of trout from the brooks, 

 and the various berries which grow plentifully in the 

 wild waste lands round their settlement. 

 " Presently the canoe was signalled, and, going down to 

 the water's edge, I embarked, and in a few minutes stood 



