Page:The Englishwoman in America (IA englishwomaninam00birdrich).pdf/82

 crazy vessel, which had been injured only two night before by a collision in a race. On the night on which some of my companions sailed the Creole's engines were disabled, and she remained in a helpless condition for four hours, so I had a very fortunate escape.

Taking leave of the amusingly miscellaneous party in the "house-room," I left Shediac for the Bend, in company with seven persons from Prince Edward Island, in a waggon drawn by two ponies, and driven by the landlord, a shrewd specimen of a colonist.

This mode of transit deserves a passing notice. The waggon consisted of an oblong shallow wooden tray on four wheels; on this were placed three boards resting on high unsteady props, and the machine was destitute of springs. The ponies were thin, shaggy, broken-kneed beings, under fourteen hands high, with harness of a most meagre description, and its cohesive qualities seemed very small, if I might judge from the frequency with which the driver alighted to repair its parts with pieces of twine, with which his pockets were stored, I suppose in anticipation of such occasions.

These poor little animals took nearly four hours to go fourteen miles, and even this rate of progression was only kept up by the help of continual admonitions from a stout leather thong.

It was a dismal evening, very like one in England at the end of November—the air cold and damp—and I found the chill from wet clothes and an east wind anything but agreeable. The country also was extremely uninviting, and I thought its aspect more gloomy than that of Nova Scotia. Sometimes we traversed swamps swarming