Franquet Makes Plans 151 
     
    
   
   
    
     the river L’isle aux chevres—McNally’s Island—was 
     
     passed, and on either side extensive flats began to 
     
     spread out, covered with a species of herbage, which 
     
     though salt, and coarse, is yet, observes Franquet, 
     
     tender and wholesome food for cattle. 
     
    

    
     The winding channel was at intervals marked with 
     
     buoys, but even with these aids Franquet recommends 
     
     to those who would sail up the North East River in a 
     
     vessel of forty or fifty tons, to carry an experienced 
     
     pilot. When opposite Bel-air, now Scotch Fort, the 
     
     boat’s head was turned towards the right bank. The 
     
     tide was rapidly ebbing, and a dread of drifting on 
     
     shallows, accompanied with the prospect of securing 
     
     quarters for the night in the houses of the settlers that 
     
     rose on the slope above the river, brought about this 
     
     early halt in the journey. With much difficulty the land 
     
     was reached, the barge having to pass through a deep 
     
     trench which had been cut in the slimy mud. The house 
     
     which they had seen on the upland belonged to a settler 
     
     named Sieur Gauthier. He was an Acadian, as was also 
     
     his nearest neighbour, Sieur Bugeau. Each occupied a 
     
     farm of a hundred and sixty acres, and had been settled 
     
     there for eighteen months. The thick woods which had 
     
     originally covered their lands, had been partially de- 
     
     stroyed by fire, and the labour of clearing thus rendered 
     
     lighter. The travellers received a cordial welcome from 
     
     these warm-hearted Acadians, and in the evening Fran- 
     
     quet walked round Gauthier’s fields, with a view to 
     
     ascertain for himself the quality of the crops. He saw 
     
     _ there fields bearing wheat, peas, oats, and many kinds 
     
     of vegetables, with such promise of a plentiful yield, as 
     
     he had not seen surpassed even in the most favoured dis- 
     
     tricts of France; and these fields, as Gauthier told him,