Down North and Up Along 
they will build a dike yet lower, and then 
another and another, until the Pereau River, 
like the Acadians themselves, will be but a 
name. It is very pretty at the mouth of the 
Pereau. Red cliffs stand out in the water free 
from the mainland, and what banks the river 
has left are steep and red. 
The shores of Minas are steep, and are evi- 
dently the source from which the dike-lands 
have received their fertile soil. The red rocks 
of the coast have been reduced by the irresist- 
ible force of the water to the red mud of the 
fields. The tide for ages has swept in, turbid 
with particles of the rocks it has ground to 
powder, and as its waters drained slowly back 
to the sea, red mud has been left on the plains 
and in the rivers. 
There is talk of building a monster dike 
across the mouth of the lagoon into which the 
three tidal rivers empty, thus reclaiming a vast 
tract of land at one effort. If this is done, 
good-bye to the Habitant, the Canard, and the 
Cornwallis. They would be in worse plight 
than the Pereau is now, for there would not 
be so much as a trace of their turbid tide- 
waters left. It would be a pity to obliterate 
44 
