portentous length along the glimmering sea, with head of yawning rock,
and ridgy back bristled with forests. Borne on the rushing flood, they
soon drifted through the inlet, glided under the rival promontory of
Cape Blomedon, passed the red sandstone cliffs of Lyon's Cove, and
descried the mouths of the rivers Canard and Des Habitants, where
fertile marshes, diked against the tide, sustained a numerous and
thriving population. Before them spread the boundless meadows of Grand
Pre, waving with harvests or alive with grazing cattle; the green slopes
behind were dotted with the simple dwellings of the Acadian farmers, and
the spire of the village church rose against a background of woody
hills. It was a peaceful, rural scene, soon to become one of the most
wretched spots on earth. Winslow did not land for the present, but held
his course to the estuary of the River Pisiquid, since called the Avon.
Here, where the town of Windsor now stands, there was a stockade called
Fort Edward, where a garrison of regulars under Captain Alexander Murray
kept watch over the surrounding settlements. The New England men pitched
their tents on shore, while the sloops that had brought them slept on
the soft bed of tawny mud left by the fallen tide.

Winslow found a warm reception, for Murray and his officers had been
reduced too long to their own society not to welcome the coming of
strangers. The two commanders conferred together. Both had been ordered
by Lawrence to "clear the whole country of such bad subjects;" and the
methods of doing so had been outlined for their guidance. Having come to
some understanding with his brother officer concerning the duties
imposed on both, and begun an acquaintance which soon grew cordial on
both sides, Winslow embarked again and retraced his course to Grand Pre,
the station which the Governor had assigned him. "Am pleased," he wrote
to Lawrence, "with the place proposed by your Excellency for our
reception [_the village church_]. I have sent for the elders to remove
all sacred things, to prevent their being defiled by heretics." The
church was used as a storehouse and place of arms; the men pitched their
tents between it and the graveyard; while Winslow took up his quarters
in the house of the priest, where he could look from his window on a
tranquil scene. Beyond the vast tract of grassland to which Grand Pre
owed its name, spread the blue glistening breast of the Basin of Mines;
beyond this again, the