"This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe when it hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman? Where is the thatch-roof village, the home of Acadian farmers-- Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands? Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!" CHAPTER XX. The Valley of Acadia--A Morning Ride to the Dykes--An unexpected Wild-duck Chase--High Tides--The Gasperau--Sunset--The Lamp of History--Conclusion. The eastern sun glittered on roof and window-pane next morning. Neat houses in the midst of trim gardens, rise tier above tier on the hill-slopes that overlook the prairie lands. A green expanse, several miles in width, extends to the edge of the dykes, and in the distance, upon its verge, here and there a farmhouse looms up in the warm haze of a summer morning. On the left hand the meadows roll away until they are merged in the bases of the cliffs that, stretching forth over the blue water of the Basin, end abruptly at Cape Blomidon. These cliffs are precise counterparts of our own Palisades, on the Hudson. Then to the right, again, the vision follows the hazy coast-line until it melts in the indistinct outline of wave and vapor, back of which rises the Gasperau mountain, that protects the valley on the east with corresponding barriers of rock and forest. Within this hemicycle lie the waters of Minas, bounded on the north by the horizon-line, the clouds and the sky. Once happy Acadia nestled in this valley. Does it not seem incredible that even Puritan tyranny could have looked with hard and pitiless eyes upon such a scene, and invade with rapine, sword and fire, the peace and serenity of a land so fair?