488 BAY OF FUNDY. 



canoes advance side by side. Time passes on, the tide swiftly recedes as 

 it rose, and there are the birds left on the beach. See with what pleasure 

 each wild inhabitant of the forest seizes his stick, the squaws and young- 

 lings following with similar weapons ! Look at them rushing on their 

 prey, falling on the disabled birds, and smashing them with their cudgels, 

 imtil all are destroyed i In this manner upwards of five hundred wild 

 fowls have often been procured in a few hours. 



Three pleasant days were spent about Point Lepreaux, when the 

 Fancy spread her wings to the breeze. In one harbour we fished for 

 shells, with a capital dredge, and in another searched along the shore for 

 eggs. The Passamaquody chief is seen gliding swiftly over the deep in 

 his fragile bark. He has observed a porpoise breathing. Watch him, 

 for now he is close upon the unsuspecting dolphin. He rises erect, aims 

 his musket ; smoke rises curling from the pan, and rushes from the iron 

 tube, when soon after the report comes on the ear ; — meantime the por- 

 poise has suddenly turned back downwards; — it is dead. The body 

 weighs a hundred pounds or more, but this to the tough-fibred son of the 

 woods is nothing ; he reaches it with his muscular arms, and at a single 

 jerk, while with his legs he dexterously steadies the canoe, he throws it 

 lengthwise at his feet. Amidst the highest waves of the Bay of Fundy, 

 these feats are performed by the Indians during the whole of the season 

 when the porpoises resort thither. 



You have often no doubt heard of the extraordinary tides of this bay ; 

 so had I, but, like others, I was loth to believe that the reports were 

 strictly true. So I went to the pretty town of Windsor, in Nova Scotia, 

 to judge for myself. But let us leave the Fancy for a while, and fancy 

 ourselves at Windsor. Late one day in August, my companions and I 

 were seated on the grassy and elevated bank of the river, about eighty 

 feet or so above its bed, which was almost dry, and extended for nine 

 miles below like a sandy wilderness. Many vessels lay on the high banks, 

 taking in their lading of gypsum. We thought the appearance very 

 singular, but we were too late to watch the tide that evening. Next morn- 

 ing we resumed our station, and soon perceived the water flowing towards 

 us, and rising with a rapidity of which we had previously seen no example. 

 We planted along the steep declivity of the bank a number of sticks, 

 each three feet long, the base of one being placed on a level with the top 

 of that below it, and when about half flow the tide reached their tops, 



