Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/496

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440
AUDUBON

"wolfy." The man returned, put out the pine-knot—the linch-pin could not be found—and another quarter of an hour was spent in repairing with all sorts of odds and ends. How much longer Ingalls could, or would, have held the horses, we never asked him, as from different exclamations we heard him utter we thought it well to be silent on that subject. The day dawned fair and beautiful. I ran a mile or so ahead of the coach to warm my feet, and afterwards sat by the driver to obtain, if possible, some information about the country, which became poorer and poorer as our journey proceeded. We were all very hungry, and were told the "stand" stood twenty-five miles from the lost linch-pin. I asked our driver to stop wherever he thought we could procure a dozen or so of hard-boiled eggs and some coffee, or indeed anything eatable; so he drew up at a house where the owner looked us over, and said it would be quite impossible to provide a breakfast for six persons of our appearance. We passed on and soon came on the track of a tolerably large bear, in the road, and at last reached the breakfast ground at a house on the margin of Green Lake, a place where fish and game, in the season, abound. This lake forms part of the channel which was intended to be cut for connecting by canal the Atlantic, the Baie of Fundy, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, at Bay Verte. Ninety thousand pounds have been expended, but the canal is not finished, and probably never will-be; for we are told the government will not assist the company by which it was undertaken, and private spirit is slumbering. We had an excellent breakfast at this house, seventeen miles from Halifax; this place would be a most delightful summer residence. The road was now level, but narrow; the flag of the Halifax garrison was seen when two miles distant. Suddenly we turned short, and stopped at a gate fronting a wharf, where was a small ferry-boat. Here we were detained nearly an hour; how would this work in the States? Why did Mrs. Trollope not visit Halifax?