10 



beeu made a few miles back it would have ruu for the greater portion of 

 its length over level ground offering every possible advantage to coloniza- 

 tion. 



As it is now, the road can only be used by bits and that it is the 

 reason why it is so often intorrupted between the county of liellechasse, 

 whore it begins, and the county of Rimouski, where it ends. Moreover, 

 in opening this great road in rear ol the seiguiorial concessions, the fact 

 that it should be placed in communication with the parishes on the shore, 

 Avas completely overlooked and this is why a great many settlers who 

 went there full of hope for the future came away discouraged and the 

 road, being no longer kept in order, has in many places been abandoned 

 and lilled with weeds and wild plants. 



Afror passing several hills, we come almost unexpectedly upon the 

 modi'st village of Saint (ialmel, si^^iate on a larg.' plateau of very good 

 soil, yielding almost every kind of produce grmvn in this Province. Far 

 away, outlined against the sky, wo see tin? sharp peaks oi the Dlue Moun- 

 tains, a detached spur of the Apalachim range. This chain, which is of 

 but little height but whose deep blue shows otit strongly in a clear atmos- 

 phere, produces an elfect which is striking at first sight, but w^hich after- 

 wards becomes familiar and even agreable. 



Saint Gabriel is a small parish which dates baek twenty-five years at 

 the most. Its first iuhal)itai)t, Pire Piton, lived thi're quite aloue fur four or 

 live j^nirs. In many new settlements we find these strange characters 

 who, from love of solitude or impelled by a resistless desire to precede all 

 olh rs, have managed to exist, to provide for themselves and their young 

 families, in a state of complete isolation. 



This taste i:^, fortunat;-ly, especially remarkable in confirmed bachelors, 

 the enemies of their race, who are on familiar terms w'ith the beasts of the 

 forest which th(>y, nevertheless, hunt to the death. Until quite recently 

 ther.» lived an old bachelor on the slope of one of th:' steepest hills of St. 

 Gabriel, in a htit separated by deep ravines from the nearest dwellings. 

 He lost courage in the end and the contagious exaini)le of tln^ parishioners 

 of Si Gnl)riel, whose i'amilii's consist, on an avrage, of ten or I welve 

 children, iudueed him to eud'^avour to earn the hundred acre lot offered 

 by the GovernuKMit to model fathi'rs. He, therefore, took a wife which 

 h;)d thi- good eliect, amongst other things, of making him give up his hut 

 and bringing him nearer fiis fellow-settlers. 



At St. Gabri.'l there are still some log-hoitses, but they are becoming 

 rapidly iranslbrnied and even under ovir eyes. The staple produce con- 

 sist.- of oats which are sold to the lumber merchants. 



The. farmers who do not obtain sulficieut produce from their farms 

 for th'iir subsistence, work in the shanties themselves or manufacture saw 

 logs which they sell. Those who derive sulficieut sitbsisteuce froiia their 



