"with a summons sonorous Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat. Thronged ere long was the church with men. Without in the churchyard, Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the head stones Garlands of autumn leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them, Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor Echoed the sound of their brass drums from ceiling to casement,-- Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the soldiers." After refreshing ourselves with pure, clear, and cold water from the old well,--made by the French, and re-walled a few years ago,--we turn away, with "a longing, lingering look behind", and continue our drive through the great prairie, which resembles the fertile meadow land along the Connecticut River. We stop a few moments near a picturesque little church of gray unpainted wood, and look off over the verdant fields to the point where a distant shimmer of water catches the eye, and the hills bound the picture. Near at hand, on the right, the trunk of an aged apple tree, "planted by the French", shows one green shoot; and about the church are Lombardy poplars, which, though good sized trees, are perhaps only shoots from those planted by the Acadians, in remembrance of such arboreal grenadiers of their native land. The old French dike is surmounted by a rough rail fence, and is now far inland, as hundreds of acres have been reclaimed beyond,-- "Dikes that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant Shut out the turbulent tides" Our lamented American poet never visited this region which he describes so delightfully; his reason being that, cherishing an ideal picture, he feared reality might dissipate it. Yet an easy journey of twenty-eight hours would have brought him hither; and we, feeling confident that he could not have been disappointed, shall always regret that he did not come. As an appropriate close to this sentimental journey, we drive through the secluded Gaspereau valley, along the winding river, which is hardly more than a creek, toward its wider part where it flows into the Basin, which stretches out broad and shining. With such a view before us, we cannot fail to picture mentally the tragic scenes of that October day in 1755, when the fleet of great ships lay in the Basin, and "When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile, Exile without an end, and without an example in story," those whom Burke describes as "the poor, innocent, deserving people, whom our utter inability to govern or reconcile, gave us no sort of right to extirpate," were torn from their happy homes, and "Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean."