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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.
Before the travelers reached Shediac, they had leisure to ruminate upon the education of American girls in the schools set apart for them, and to conjecture how much they are taught of the geography and history of America, or of its social and literary growth; and whether, when they travel on a summer tour like this, these coasts have any historical light upon them, or gain any interest from the daring and chivalric adventurers who played their parts here so long ago.
Western Extension, as the line to the Maine border was called, had only been commenced; Eastern Extension, from the Shediac line towards Halifax, was in the same condition; in fact, the total mileage of the railways in New Brunswick did not exceed two hundred miles, and these lines were isolated and formed no part of any complete system.
Quebec could be reached in summer by the steamer from Pictou which called at Shediac, but in winter the journey had to be made by the Grand Trunk Railway from Portland, the only alternative route being the road by which the mails were carried from Edmunston north to the St. Lawrence.
It may be stated here that, although the company was formed and undertook to build a railway to Shediac under the terms offered by the government, the province had eventually to build the road at a cost of forty thousand dollars a mile, or fully double what a similar road could be constructed for now.
I'm almost ready to swear that you shan't have a yarn from me for the whole spring. To accuse me of yarning me that " "That humbugged the whole Associated Press of the United States no longer ago than the war with the southerns. I mind myself how you told them at Shediac, that the Alabama was down among the fishermen in the bay, like a hawk among a flock of pigeons.
It once seemed to us that, if we ever reached it, we should be contented to abide there, in a place so remote, in a port so picturesque and foreign. But returning from the real east, our late interest in Shediac seemed unaccountable to us.
When women write history, some of our popular men heroes will, we trust, be made to acknowledge the female sources of their wisdom and their courage. But at present women do not much affect history, and they are more indifferent to the careers of the noted of their own sex than men are. We expected to approach Shediac with a great deal of interest.
The Intercolonial railway train had gone to Shediac; it had gone also on its roundabout Moncton, Missaquat River, Truro, Stewiack, and Shubenacadie way to Halifax; the boat had gone to Digby Gut and Annapolis to catch the train that way for Halifax; the boat had gone up the river to Frederick, the capital. We could go to none of these places till the next day.
Firmly resolved as I was to note our entrance into the harbor, I could not keep the place in mind; and while we were in our state-room and before we knew it, the steamboat Jay at the wharf. Shediac appeared to be nothing but a wharf with a railway train on it, and a few shanty buildings, a part of them devoted to the sale of whiskey and to cheap lodgings.
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