NATURAL HISTORY AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NEW BRUNSWICK. 433 
they come to an end the banks have again risen too steeply for 
ready ascent; and before the ascent again becomes practicable 
the river has swung away to the southwest. 
The only relics, or other traces of the use of the place, that 
have been found in the vicinity, so far as Mr. Welch knows 
or can find by inquiry, consist in a large store of bullets (some 
600 in number, of 20 caliber, weighing about 44 pounds) found 
a good many years ago by one of the afore-mentioned old resi- 
dents of Gaspereau. They were exposed by the washing away 
of the low bank about one hundred feet (not yards, as my former 
note stated), below the camp-ground, and hence at about, or a 
little above, the place where the old road reaches the beach. 
There is one other matter deserving of mention in this con- 
nection. In our first visit, in 1910, I was under the impression 
that the portage path left the river east of Portage Island, and 
accordingly we made our search for it there. It soon became 
evident that only a single route was physiographically possible, 
for only a single gap occurs in the cliffs. The line of abrupt 
■Sandstone cliffs 'north of Portage Island is broken towards the 
east, as shown on the map, by an open ravine containing a clear 
little rivulet, alongside of which now runs a modern lumber 
road. Just west of this roatl we detected the traces of an old 
path leading by an easy grade up the sparsely-wooded slope to 
the high land along the course shown (by survey) on my map; 
and we felt confident at the time that this was the Indian path. 
It is not impossible, though I agree it is highly improbable, that 
this was the actual starting point of the Indian path, which 
joined the other route a little to the northwest, the reputed 
portage being simply the course of the first portage road cut by 
the early lumbermen in their desire to reach the river by the 
shortest and easiest slope. Such a view might have a slight 
support in Beckwith’s map, which shows two endings of the 
Portage on the Gaspereau, though this map is too crude and 
generalized to be cited as authority. Against such a view, 
however, is the fg.ct that the camping facilities at this place, 
while possible for a tent or two, are impracticable for any number. 
The path is doubtless a work of the later lumbermen. 
The Gaspereau below the portage is a rather swift stream, 
and moderately troublesome from the canoeman’s point of 
view, especially at low water. It is much more difficult than 
Cains River, which, however, is unusually easy. But its rougher 
part is not very long, and moreover is much easier than many 
a stream which the Indians travelled habitually; so that I have 
no doubt it was reckoned a fairly easy route by the skilled Indian 
polers. 
