TRANSPORTATION In the days of the French regime, Isle St. Jean was so heavily wooded that travel was necessarily by water or Indian trails; a rough road joined Port La Joye and St. Peter 's, which was then the com?? mercial capital of the Island. The first road of the British era was from Stanhope to Charlotte Town ; by tradition this was said to have been blazed by Robert Auld , the Stanhope blacksmith. This trail was suitable for use on horseback; later, about 1780, it was widened and improved by Governor Walter Patterson 's order. Travel by water had some unusual features in the early days. William Drummond records in his Diary for April 22,1771: Set off in a boat for St. Peter 's, being stopped by ice, the boat returned, but I proceeded with a Frenchman on foot, passed Savage Harbour on a cake of ice, arrived at 5 p.m....; nothing like a handy ice floe for ocean travel. On another occasion, riding in the other direction, from St. Peter 's to Stanhope , Drummond... attempted to swim Tracadie ... (after success?? fully swimming Savage Harbour )... but my beast, being young, failed under me in the middle of the harbour, when I threw myself out of the saddle and swam back and so returned next day to St. Peter 's after spending all that day and night in my wet clothes ... No wonder he had ... a low fever. The loss of the drowned horse must have been a blow, when they were in short supply. Drummond also travelled at different times by Indian canoe, by ... Mr. Higgins sloop, by ... Mr. Urquhart 's shallop, and by ... the Mermaid pinnace; and he slept on board the and the Mermaid men-of-war when he visited . At this time, too, all the supplies for the Stanhope settlers had to be brought round by sea from David Higgins ' supply system at Three Rivers, and the settlers themselves must have done most of their travelling by boat, until trails were made and the supply of horses improved. 110