154 The French in Prince Edward Island 
     
    
   
   
    
     The portion of the journey which yet remained to be 
     
     accomplished was of a most arduous character. From 
     
     Madame Gentil’s to St. Peter’s Harbour, a road six or 
     
     seven feet wide had been laid out. But it was a road 
     
     without bridges, although it crossed swamps and 
     
     streams. Beyond cutting down trees when the line lay 
     
     through the forest, or removing stumps when the rav- 
     
     ages of fire had destroyed the timber, man’s labour had 
     
     been studiously withheld from the work. The roadway 
     
     itself owed nothing either to pick or spade, but bore 
     
     unsoftened on its surface all the irregularities bestowed 
     
     by wild nature. The old-fashioned choutte dragged 
     
     along by two stout oxen, was the only conveyance that 
     
     might venture on such a road. Two or three of these 
     
     primitive vehicles were at the service of the travellers. 
     
     They, however, seem to have used them only to cross 
     
     the creeks and streams. 
     
    

    
     Leaving the house of Madame Gentil, the road bent ~ 
     
     away from the river in a north easterly direction, lead- 
     
     ing through an extensive stretch of blackened and 
     
     charred timber, relicts of the great fire which consumed 
     
     the forest from the sources of the North East River to 
     
     St. Peters. Plodding along under a burning sun, Fran- 
     
     quet and his companions picked the blue berries, which 
     
     grew in great plenty along the route, and found them 
     
     in the heat of the day a welcome refreshment. The road 
     
     leaving this burned track approached the southern 
     
     waters of Savage Harbor, and crossing the estuary of a 
     
     small stream, which at high tide was covered with two 
     
     feet of water, it entered thick woods, from which it 
     
     issued to plunge through another creek, which was 
     
     always filled with water, and having a soft mud bottom 
     
     was most difficult to cross. At this point the gray sand