1 6 Field and Forest Rambles. 



little country town surrounded by trees, and spread out on 

 a broad alluvial flat, which, like a rounded promontory, is 

 washed in front and two sides by the St. John. 



In honour of the House of Brunswick, Fredericton has its 

 Queen, King, Brunswick, George, and Charlotte streets. As 

 at St. John, wood houses and wood pavements predominate ; 

 indeed everything is timber, and its wharfs groan with piles 

 of the same material ; altogether a thriving, bustling little 

 town, now brought in direct communication with the sea- 

 port by a railway which is being extended further north- 

 wards. Although dwarfed as regards size by the city just 

 named, still, from position and antiquity, Fredericton claims 

 to be the capital, although shorn of the little grandeur of 

 the older days of irresponsible governments, when the mother 

 country was teaching her colonies how to walk. But now 

 that the infantile stage, as we may so designate the past, 

 has given place to adolescence and a promising manhood, 

 what between railways, and other latter-day features of the 

 industry and enterprise of this hardy people, there is to all 

 appearances a bright future for little Fredericton. The city 

 of Frederick (how the " k " has got out of the modern ortho- 

 graphy I cannot say) was founded by the early settlers at 

 this point, chiefly because the situation was central, and 

 about the highest navigable station for vessels.* However, 

 steamers of small draught, with paddle-wheel astern, find their 

 way up even to the Grand Falls, which are 125 miles above 

 Fredericton. At the latter the river is about three-quarters of 

 a mile in breadth. Among the institutions of the past regime, 

 there is still an Upper and Lower House of Assembly, and a 

 Governor, although the province is but an integral portion of 

 the Great Dominion, and by way of comparison- has not half 

 the demand for this paraphernalia of government as, for 

 example, either Scotland or Ireland ; but perhaps it is as well 

 to let the present generation live out their old associations. I 

 * Fredericton, as the crow flies, is about sixty miles inland. 



