Franquet Makes Plans 155

dunes began to appear on either hand, then came a suc- cession of ponds along which the road skirted. In heavy floods these ponds overflowed, covering the roadway and causing, not indeed danger, for the bottom was hard, but much inconvenience to the pedestrian. Leav- ing the ponds, the travellers soon arrived at the en- closed lands of the settlers, through which they passed till they reached the entrance to St. Peter’s Harbour.

Franquet observes that the settlement was entirely composed of old residents. The stream of Acadian emi- gration had only touched the remote boundaries along the right bank of the North East River. The houses of the fishermen clustered along the breast of the slope at the foot of which stood stores and warehouses, and on its rounded summit rose the large and strongly built church dedicated to St. Peter. Owing to the extensive land grants the houses of the farmers stood far apart. - Nothing, in Franquet’s eyes, had ever surpassed the beauty and abundance of the harvest. He traversed field after field forming, as was his wont, comparisons in his own mind, between the crops he had seen in the most favoured provinces of France, and the crops he saw there waving under his eyes from soil only recently re- claimed from the wilderness. A grist mill was greatly needed in the settlement and he urged the Government to erect one in a locality as central as possible for the farmers.

From the dunes which thickly studded the sea-shore on the east and west side of the harbour, there grew a species of wild grass which made good fodder for cattle. No settler’s deed of concession contained any mention of these sand hillocks, and the commandant, no matter how carefully he exercised the rights of the Government