Difficulties of Forest Travelling. 49 



there surreptitiously maintained by friends. No doubt the 

 dietary contributes towards developing the inherent predis- 

 position : indeed many of the afflicted attribute their con- 

 ditions to feeding on salted fish for lengthened periods, and in 

 consequence of the prevalence of the disease in families, there 

 grew a belief that it was communicable by touch. This, how- 

 ever, has been clearly proved not to be the case, whilst on 

 the other hand the hereditary transmission is indisputable, 

 as shown by careful observations made by Drs. Bayard and 

 Wilson of St. John. Considering the scientific interest con- 

 nected with the natural history of this formidable malady, 

 I have made an abstract in the Appendix from the report of 

 these gentlemen, showing the consanguinity of the inmates of 

 the lazaretto at the time of their inspection. The repulsive 

 aspects of many of the unfortunate beings are too shocking to 

 relate, and although a good deal has been done to ameliorate 

 their conditions, still, from all I could learn, there are few 

 public charities in the province more deserving general support 

 than the leper hospital of Tracadie. 



I made an ineffectual attempt to visit these poor outcasts, 

 but at a season of the year when travelling is very difficult in 

 consequence of thaws ; indeed I got as far as the mouth of the 

 Mirimachi River, and was within forty miles of the lazaretto, 

 when a continuance of May floods carried away bridges and 

 destroyed the usual route along the north-east coast. Never 

 shall I forget the four days spent in traversing these sixty 

 miles of New Brunswick forest in a wretched waggon yclept 

 the " Royal Mail," when after twenty-four hours' struggling 

 over the most villanous of roads, we halted at midnight at a 

 country inn, where I slept on the floor, with the mail-bags for 

 a pillow. How the driver of the diligence fell asleep as we 

 were rattling down a steep hill, and by way of bringing the 

 negligent whip to a sense of duty, his neighbour, a Presbyterian 

 parson, nudged him so violently as to knock the culprit from 

 his box ; the meeting with the skipper of a German vessel in 



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