Driving along the road we frequently started coveys of spruce partridges. I used occasionally, when time permitted, to get a shot at them. These birds do not, like our partridges, take to the fields, but on rising from the ground always fly into fir trees; they are very stupid, and once in a tree will allow you to shoot them all, provided you begin with the lowest and proceed upwards. I recollect at one place where we breakfasted after leaving Windsor, a large brown bear and two cubs had been caught during the night in a pit fall; the old one was shot in the pit, and the young ones kept alive, probably to be sent to England. The native Mic Mac Indians are a poor race, those, at least, that I saw in Halifax and its neighbourhood. They are confined to a few families. They used to come to the town in their slight bark canoes, bringing game, and skins of the silver and black fox, and boxes made of the bark of the birch tree, ornamented with the small quills of the porcupine, dyed of various colours. I have often been in their wigwams, and always found the people civil. Some of the young squaws were passable, but the old women frightful. These wigwams are easily built: half a dozen poles placed triangularly and covered with the bark of the birch tree, is the general plan; the fire is in the middle of the hut, the smoke finding its way out at the top, and by the door-way. These habitations appear warm, and the inmates healthy. When travelling, the women carry their babies in a kind of basket, strapped to their back, which resembles the lower part of a fiddle-case, peeping out of which their little smoked faces have a curious appearance. After disposing of their wares, these people generally get drunk and fight, the men beating the squaws, who, in their turn, belabour the men. It not unfrequently happens that those who return by water contrive to upset their canoes, when they lose all the articles they have bought; it is, however, very rare that any of the crew are drowned. Fish of various sorts are most abundant, and the market very good. The harbour of Halifax is safe, but sometimes difficult to make, on account of the thick fogs, which in particular winds,--those from south-east to south-west,--hang about the coast. A very provoking circumstance occurred to one of the lieutenants, who was a Welchman, and a married man, during a cruise, caused by a nanny-goat eating his letters that he had just received from England, previous to his having read them. A schooner joined us at sea from Bermuda, bringing the mail and letters from there and Halifax, Nova Scotia. We all felt very anxious about news, for it was nearly ten months since we had heard from “sweet home;” in consequence of our being out cruising, and going from place to place, they had missed us.