NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 431 
In the first place, the testimony of men still living who knew 
the portage while yet clearly visible, is unanimous in placing 
its starting point a short distance above Portage Island, whose 
location is perfectly well known and represented upon the accom- 
panying maps. My informants are Mr. P. H. Welch, who has 
known this region intimately since early youth, and who remem- 
bers the portage when still distinct all the way from Gaspereau 
to Cains River: two or three old residents of Gaspereau, (inter- 
viewed for me by Mr. Welch), one of whom, now over eighty 
years of age, claims to have seen Indians cross it: and Mr. 
Alexander Arbo, whose long and intimate knowledge of this 
region I have mentioned in the Note on Cains River. And their 
evidence is in general agreement with that of the only map 
known to me which marks the portage, a MS sketch of proposed 
roads in this region by Beckwith in the Crown Land Office, 
though this map is too crude to be of any real service in the 
exact identification of the place. As to its position more exactly, 
Mr. Welch and the old resident of Gaspereau agree that the 
Indian path left the river a short quarter of a mile above Portage 
Island, followed a ravine or gully giving an easy access to the 
higher country behind, and was later followed by a lumber road 
cut along the course of the old path, and used by the lumbermen 
to obtain an easier slope to the higher ground. 
Aided by this information, we had little trouble in locating 
the position of the ancient path, despite the fact that no visible 
trace of it now remains. Portage Island is an insignificant 
island, little more than a flat weed-covered gravel bar lying 
near the northern bank in the extreme northerly bend of the 
river; but its identity is unmistakeable, for the lumbermen 
and others who use the river all know it by that name, while, 
moreover, it is the only island for a long distance up or down 
the stream. North and west of it lie the Portage Island Flats, 
a low open intervale, almost a marsh, covered with coarse grass. 
Here the usually narrow and rock-walled valley opens out a 
little, for the line of abrupt cliffs lying east of the island gradually 
gives place north of the flats to . a wooded slope which becomes 
more gradual to the westward towards the limits of our map. 
A short quarter of a mile above Portage Island, at about the 
place where, according to information, the portage path should 
lie, is a little cove formed by a grass grown gravelly projection 
from the beach; and emptying into this cove it a tiny rivulet 
running deep down among stores, and probably dry at 
times. The upland here is very low, and this rivulet reaches 
the river through the center of a flat, £tony, bushy-wooded 
