1897-8. TRANSACTIONS. 61 



the giant headland looming up as mysterious as the great roc 

 of "The Arabian Nights." 



In New Brunswick a river is called, in local parlance, 

 Ken-ne-bec-ay'shus, and local tradition, in endeavoring to ac- 

 count for the name, affirms that once on a time when the 

 river banks and the adjacent country were covered with a 

 dense forest there stood on the clearing, before the river, a 

 tavern, the proprietor of which was named Casey. Two travel- 

 lers in a terrible storm pushed on their way and coming sud- 

 denly upon the house thought of the comfort the inn and its 

 accompanying " hot toddy " would afford and asked each other 

 with incredulous joy, " Can it be Casey's ? " Hence, of course, 

 the name. 



There are two mountains near the border line of the 

 two fine counties of Colchester and Pictou in Nova Scotia, 

 Mount Thom, and Mount Ephraim. Local tradition gives 

 the following account of the origin of these place-names. The 

 early settlers of Truro, Nova Scotia, came from New Hamp- 

 shire (New England) and for a time lived in great terror of 

 the Indians and accordingly they resorted at night to a stock- 

 aded fort where they might sleep without dreaming of wild 

 Indians, war-hoops, tomahawks and scalping knives. On 

 one occasion word was sent to them from Halifax warning 

 them of the hostile intentions of a large band of Indians in 

 camp, at or near Pictou. The settlers resolved upon sending 

 scouts across the river to find out. Tom Archibald, Ephraim 

 Howard and John Oughterson volunteered for the service. 

 After journeying for some time through the dense forest they 

 came to a hill according to their calculations not far from 

 Pictou. Selecting the tallest tree Oughterson said to Archi- 

 bald "Mount, Tom." Tom in obedience to the order mount- 

 ed the tree. Not seeing the water from his lofty perch, he so 

 reported and the trio travelled some distance further and came 

 to another hill where they repeated the effort to see salt water, 

 only on this occasion the command was addressed to Howard, 

 " Moimt, Ephraim." On their return to Truro they described 

 the incidents of their expedition and among these were the 

 tree-mounting exploits. Naturally the hill where Tom climb- 

 ed the tree became known as Thom's Mount and the other as 

 Ephraim's Mount. Hence to this day Mount Thom and 

 Mount Ephraim remain the distinguishing place-names of 

 these two elevations. 



I have thus very imperfectly given a partial view of the 



