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 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 12 3 
 
 4 5 6 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 iBiiim 
 
iiiiWll 
 
f 
 
 w 
 
 AITINC; FOR THE 1 IDE 
 
Down North and 
 Up Along 
 
 By 
 
 Margaret Warner Morley 
 
 Author of '« The Honey-makers," «« The Bee People," 
 
 etc. 
 
 fVith Illustrations 
 
 % 
 
 New YoiK 
 
 Dodd Mead 
 
 and Company 
 
 1912 
 
PC 
 
 53/7 V 
 /9/Z 
 
 Copyright^ igoo 
 Bv DoDD, Mead and Company 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
 7//. 7^- 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Pack 
 
 I. DiGBY ^ ^ . 
 
 II. Cannon Field lg 
 
 III. Acadia -g 
 
 IV. Acadia's Crops ^n 
 
 V. Grand Pr£ -_ 
 
 VI. Evangeline gq 
 
 VII. The Acadians 8q 
 
 VIII. Blomidon „. 
 
 94 
 
 IX. Partridge Island uq 
 
 X. Halifax • • . . . no 
 
 XI. Toward Cape Breton iaS 
 
 XII. Baddeck ..g 
 
 XIII. Englishtown ...».,.., 17^ 
 
 XIV. French River ,„. 
 
 XV. Cape Smoky 21 . 
 
 XVI. Ingonish ^ ^ 2qr 
 
 XVII. The Half Way House 254 
 
 XVIII. AsPY Bay . * * ^^^ 
 
 XIX. Cape North ^g- 
 
gaBaBJSBaa 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Waiting for the Tide Frontispiea 
 
 Facing Pace 
 DlCBY . . , , , 
 
 Sounds drying ... 
 
 «4 
 
 Ox WITH Head Yoke ... « 
 
 ••••••• 2e 
 
 At the End of the Day , ^ 
 
 A Leafy Tent op the Micmacs 33 
 
 Spinning . 
 
 "54 
 
 Cape Smoky, Cape Breton ' .g 
 
 Drying Cod . 
 
 ... 208 
 
 Splitting Tables . . 
 
 210 
 
 Early Morning on the Coast . 
 
 * • • • Z Zx 
 
 Washing Potatoes . . 
 
 230 
 
 Catching Trout for Dinner 
 
 „ ^44 
 
 'booking Trout . . 
 
 262 
 
 Clybourn's Brook . . 
 
 278 
 
 A Fishing Schooni-r . . , 
 
 ••••••.. 296 
 
 ne illustration, in this book are from photographs l.y An^elia M. Watson, 
 Edttb S. fFatson, and Frank G. fVamcr, 
 
MAPS 
 
 Facing Pags 
 Nova Scotia •••...,,.. g 
 
 CoRNWALLis Valley ,g 
 
 Cape Breton Island . , , , ,^3 
 
>• 
 
 II 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 DIGBY 
 
 THE St. John River runs uphill. Not 
 through its whole course, and not 
 all the time. Still, it runs uphill, as 
 one can readily see by standing at 
 high tide on the bridge that crosses its mouth 
 at the town of St. John, and watching the 
 water rush like a mill-race up from the Bay of 
 Fundy into the land, where it pours over rocks 
 in cascades that fall the wrong way. 
 
 Aside from this eccentricity, the St. John Is 
 an orderly and very beautiful stream, winding 
 in its course and bordered by lovely headlands. 
 From St. John, New Brunswick, to Digby, 
 Nova Scotia, is a three or five hours' sail, ac- 
 cording to the condition of the " St. Rupert's '* 
 steam cylinders, that humorous vessel having a 
 way of blowing one or more of them out just 
 before tne hour of starting. 
 
 The way from St. John to Digby lies across 
 the Bay of Fundy. What better port of entry 
 to a new country could be desired than the 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 sounding Bay of Fundy, with the high tides 
 of one's childhood's geography still beating on 
 its shores ? 
 
 And then the thrill of mingled indignation 
 and satisfaction with which one suddenly dis- 
 covers the English flag over one's head instead 
 of the stars and stripes ! Indignation thus to be 
 sailing under a foreign flag in one's own coun- 
 try, as it were, but satisfaction to have reached 
 foreign soil with so little effort. One always 
 observes with regret that the English flag is 
 far more beautiful than the stars and stripes, — 
 for no amount of loyalty can blend a stripe 
 of red and then of white into a harmony truly 
 grateful to the eye. 
 
 The Bay of Fundy cannot be described as 
 an exciting spectacle on that calm August day 
 when first we saw it. Indeed, it very much 
 resembled any other expanse of water, and if its 
 tides are beyond all reason we did not perceive 
 it then. 
 
 We came sailing through the Digby Gut at 
 sunset, the clear waters of Fundy behind us, the 
 Annapolis Basin opening dream-like in front, 
 while to the right the bold front of Beaman*s 
 Mountain, and to the left the abrupt termina- 
 
J^igh 
 
 tion of North Mountain, narrowed the Gut to 
 its present mile-wide channel, holding it in 
 sure rocky bonds that no monster tides nor 
 winter storms could unloose. 
 
 If the gods are propitious, when the traveller 
 sails through Digby Gut he will have a clear 
 sky under which the Annapolis Basin will lie 
 blue, and in the distance misty, defined by the 
 pleasing outlines of its purple-blue hills. On 
 the right Digby will lie, so dream-like and 
 lovely that one fears to draw near, lest it 
 vanish and a commonplace village take its 
 place. 
 
 If the gods are wholly inclined to favour the 
 traveller, he will approach Digby, not only at 
 sunset, on a clear day, but at low tide as well. 
 Then the village that in the distance was a 
 vision of wonderful blues and purples will not 
 grow commonplace as he comes near, for he 
 will forget all about it. 
 
 By the time he is close enough to discover 
 its unpoetical and actual state his attention will 
 be centred upon the wharf that towers high 
 above the smoke-stack of the steamer as it 
 comes alongside it. Far above the passengers* 
 heads a heavy wall of planks is hung with wet 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 il: 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 seaweeds and painted deep browns and greens 
 by the ocean, while clusters of barnacles add 
 their gray and white to the strange decorations. 
 There is a strong salt smell in the air, that 
 fragrance of seaweed that always brings loving 
 memories of landing on distant shores. 
 
 The " St. Rupert " did not seem so small a 
 saint until we came under this giant sea-tapes- 
 tried wharf and saw the people above leaning 
 over and peering down into the depths where we 
 wallowed in the sea. And we saw no method 
 shr~t of flight which could raise us to their 
 level. 
 
 I expected M., my artist friend, who is timid 
 in the face of high places, to look worried over 
 the situation ; but no, she was as serene as a 
 May morning. The wharf was picturesque, 
 hence so commonplace an emotion as fear was 
 no luxury here, and she left the responsibility 
 of landing to the English government while 
 she enjoyed the novel scene to the utmost. 
 
 High wharves have their own secrets, we 
 were to learn, as the boat with much puffing 
 and snorting and rope-pulling finally swung 
 about and we discovered ourselves close to a 
 landing within the pier. Beneath one side of 
 
 4 
 
 m 
 
ity 
 ile 
 
 
 I 
 
 of 
 
Digby 
 
 W I ■■ — - I — I -■ - .- I ■- .-■ I , _ ^ 
 
 it a wedge had been cut out, the narrow end 
 on shore, and the wide one out in the water 
 under the wharf. The opening thus formed 
 was heavily planked within, and we crossed the 
 gangway into a cavern slimy and strange. 
 
 The floor upon which we stepped was damp, 
 barnacles encrusted the beams at the sides and 
 overhead, while green, brown, and yellow sea- 
 weeds hung on the walls, and a large starfish 
 with his arms wrapped about a stone appeared 
 to be gazing knowingly at us out of one round 
 Cyclopean eye, which, alas ! was no eye at all, 
 and we knew that in spite of his wise look he 
 was as blind as a mole. 
 
 There was a strong clean odour of the sea in 
 this strange cavern, and we heard some one 
 near say that at high tide the place upon which 
 we stood would be thirty feet under water. So 
 this giant wharf was a tribute to the tides of 
 Fundy ! 
 
 We had a sudden wish to get out; we im- 
 agined the tide coming in — swiftly, surely; 
 concealing the existence of this hole in the side 
 of the pier; the surface of the water sparkling 
 in the sunlight twenty feet higher than the 
 roof of the dark cavern. 
 
 5 
 
r-T 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Strong horses, drawing low-swung trucks, 
 came tramping down the incline. There was a 
 crowd of people making their way toward the 
 oblong space of light at the top. We joined 
 the throng, and as we reached the top turned 
 and looked back. 
 
 Above us were great jointed timbers form- 
 ing a rude arch ; within was the half-lighted 
 cavern with its sea-painted walls. It was a 
 strange sight and one that often afterward 
 drew us to the wharf when the tide was low at 
 the hour of landing. Up out of the sea-cavern 
 poured a stream of people ; dim in the back- 
 ground was a pool of water where the blind 
 starfish clasped its stone and waited for the 
 incoming tide. 
 
 The people seemed to be coming up out of 
 this water, and they should have been stream- 
 ing with seaweed and clad in scales. 
 
 We were not disappointed in Digby. It is 
 not the dream city that we saw from the boat, 
 but it is good. Its houses are commonplace 
 and uninteresting. Still, we found it good to 
 be in Digby. Its location, the buildings stand- 
 ing on one long street under a hillside, reminds 
 one of Provincetown, but the sand-hills of that 
 
 6 
 
 
Digby 
 
 fishy place of delight are lacking here ; this hill- 
 side is sodded with the most brilliant green, 
 and groups of trees grow upon it. 
 
 At present life is simple in Digby. The 
 " Americans," as they call us of the United 
 States, have not yet invaded it enough to spoil 
 its simplicity. But it is only a question of 
 time when fair Digby will belong to the 
 summer tourist. Now it is in possession of 
 the codfish. Everywhere through the vil- 
 lage, which straggles in a way to make com- 
 pensation in part for its crimes in architecture, 
 are to be seen rows upon rows of " flakes," 
 covered in fair weather with the triumphant 
 form of the cod, with reinforcements of the 
 less-esteemed haddock, hake, and pollock. 
 
 The codfish flakes are the same here as on 
 Cape Cod, the same gray skeletons built of 
 slats laid across long side-pieces, like wide, 
 close-runged ladders placed parallel to the earth 
 and supported two feet or so above it. 
 
 One likes codfish flakes, just as one does 
 old houses and old-fashioned posy-beds. They 
 give character to a place, and they always select 
 the most picturesque corners and fields in which 
 to exhibit themselves. They cling to the 
 
 7 
 
 '-*»■>. m i n i .^. H ff'^-^irBn-Ti. ^■^-.«,^-*.-v»«.<, 
 
:/! 
 
 i 
 
 i\ 
 
 Down North and Up Aloitg 
 
 shores, pre-empt all unoccupied places about 
 the wharves, and cluster about the cottages 
 of the poor. They are seldom level, but 
 pursue a wavy, uncertain course, as though, 
 gray and decrepit, they were about to give 
 up mortal strife and settle in peace to the 
 earth beneath. And then the odour of them ! 
 Anyone who does not love the faint fragrance 
 that clings to the gray old flakes has no kin- 
 ship with the ocean. 
 
 During the summer months upon the flakes 
 lies the wealth of Digby. Here the codfish is 
 spread out to dry. The time of greatest 
 ignominy as well as of greatest picturesqueness 
 for a codfish is during its season of drying 
 upon the flakes. It may then be sat upon 
 or stood upon and otherwise misused. It 
 loses its identity completely, and nobody feels 
 the slightest obligation to show it respect. It 
 has lost its fishly and elegant proportions ; 
 it is flat, shrunken, saturated with salt, and 
 lies, acres of it, spread out on its flakes to 
 render to the strong sea-breezes and the heat 
 of the sun the last remnant of water in its 
 withered form. It gives a quaint colouring to 
 the landscape and fills the air with its own 
 
 8 
 
U07lg 
 
 ces about 
 cottages 
 evel, but 
 though, 
 : to give 
 e to the 
 of them ! 
 fragrance 
 5 no kin- 
 he flakes 
 :odfish is 
 greatest 
 squeness 
 f drying 
 at upon 
 sed. It 
 )dy feels 
 )ect. It 
 ortions ; 
 alt, and 
 akes to 
 the heat 
 r in its 
 Liring to 
 its own 
 
 O 
 
 u 
 en 
 
■-# 
 
Dig by 
 
 inimitable fragrance, — the frjigrance that lin- 
 gers about the flakes when its form is no longer 
 there. It sends forth a clean appetising odour 
 very different from the fishy incense that per- 
 vades Provincetown, that mingled odour of 
 fresh, stale, and salt fish with a flavouring of tar 
 and bilge-water, the memory of which pursues 
 the stranger, but does not fill him with emo- 
 tions of delight. 
 
 The memory of the fragrant Digby fish- 
 flakes is a pleasure. Digby is so exquisitely 
 clean, the air from Fundy is so abundant and 
 clear, that the only rivals to the odour of the 
 drying cod are the salt smell of the seaweeds 
 at low tide and the fragrance from the sur- 
 rounding flower-gardens. 
 
 Whether the sailor men like it or not, they 
 are obliged to keep ship and wharf clean when 
 in Digby. The law gives them a sharp prod 
 in the form of a fine if they grow negligent. 
 
 The great winds are a wholesome purifier of 
 both ship and town, but even so, the cleanliness 
 of the fishing-schooners as they come in loaded 
 is something of a surprise. It is something 
 of a surprise too to see the cod put through 
 his phases, from the shining fish that comes 
 
-{" 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 in on the schooners to the dull triangular 
 form that appears on the flakes. 
 
 One thinks of the pitchfork as an implement 
 of the farm ; it bears upon its prongs sugges- 
 tions of new-mown hay and golden straw, but 
 here at Digby its real meaning is apparent. It 
 is Neptune's trident with one of the prongs 
 lost in the vortex of time. It is used, of course, 
 in its proper field, — to pitch codfish. Out of 
 the ship's hold the shining forms are tossed as 
 a farmer's boy tosses a sheaf of grain. 
 
 They have already, while on shipboard, 
 gone through their first sad experiences, and 
 now, headless, heartless, and saturated with 
 salt, though still with shining skins, they are 
 pitchforked from the hold to the deck. 
 Another trident-bearer then pitchforks them to 
 the wharf. Here they are pitchforked to the 
 wooden cradle in which they are weighed. 
 From the cradle they are once more pitchforked 
 into a great quivering heap on the wharf. 
 Thence they are pitchforked into wheelbarrows 
 and wheeled to the store-room, where they are 
 pitchforked into vats and resalted. 
 
 As the cod receives his last pitchforking you 
 examine him, expecting to find him riddled 
 
 xo 
 
Digby 
 
 with holes and as ragged as Rip Van Winkle's 
 old coat at the end of his twenty years* sleep 
 on the mountain. But here is matter for reflec- 
 tion. Try your best you cannot find a hole 
 in him. He bears a charmed anatomy. He 
 must certainly have been constructed with 
 special reference to being pitchforked. 
 
 There is a fiction about his getting a scrub- 
 bing when he reaches land. This is a treatment 
 which, to the observer, he appears to need 
 several times before he is finally considered 
 " cured." But he gets it only once, one scrub- 
 bing, like a plenary indulgence, evidently being 
 thought sufficient to wipe away future as well as 
 present stains. There are reasons for conjec- 
 turing that the scrubbing is sometimes omitted 
 altogether, and that he is introduced to his flakes 
 with the manifold marks of his captivity upon 
 him. 
 
 He rests awhile in the vats of salt into which 
 he was finally pitchforked, then is taken out 
 and " press-piled " for a few days. This is not 
 as bad as being pitchforked. It is merely 
 being piled up, tail in and shoulders out, into 
 a round mound by the fish-flakes. These 
 mounds of penitent cod are a part of the 
 
 II 
 
I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 picturesqueness of the actual life of the flakes. 
 There is now no more pitchforking ; that ordeal 
 at least is over. 
 
 The fish are spread upon the flakes by hand, 
 and the operator becomes very expert in shying 
 a dried cod into exactly the right spot. An 
 expert will shy cod half the length of a long 
 flake and never make a miss. 
 
 Here they lie in the sun to be blown upon 
 by the kindly winds, and if these winds prove 
 unkindly and blow upon the patient cod dust 
 from the road and soot from the chimneys, that 
 is but a slight vicissitude in the life of a dried 
 codfish which nobody minds. 
 
 When night comes the cod are gathered up 
 into piles on the flakes and covered over. In 
 the morning they are spread out again. This 
 is repeated every fair day until they are dry 
 enough, when they are put into the picturesque 
 press-piles again to await transportation to 
 distant markets. Such is the history attached 
 to the fragrant flakes, and such is the occupation 
 of Digby, 
 
 Nothing looks less likely to produce a large 
 income than a pile of dried codfish, perhaps 
 with an old coat hung over it, that being the 
 
 12 
 
 r.^ 
 
handiest way of disposing of the garment until 
 needed. Yet these thin, gray, misshapen 
 spectres have an incredible amount of good meat 
 packed under their shrivelled skins, and they 
 bring in many thousands of dollars to the 
 industrious fisher-folk. 
 
 Nor, while we are upon the subject, is dried 
 fish the sailor's only revenue from the prodigal 
 cod. Upon the decks of the ships are great 
 odorous vats full of livers from which the sun's 
 rays are economically extracting the oil. 
 
 Fish oil once encountered is very lasting, and 
 is not readily forgotten — or forgiven. The 
 cod-liver oil of the apothecary is a fragrant 
 delicacy compared to the contents of the vats 
 as they come frothing in from the fishing 
 grounds. 
 
 Then there are the "sounds," as the sailors 
 call the swim-bladders. They too are saved, 
 and having been dried in the sun go to the 
 manufacturer to come forth as gelatin, or 
 perchance as glue. " Fried fresh sounds and 
 cods' tongues " form a delicacy highly prized 
 by the fisher-folk and not to be scorned by the 
 discriminating stranger. 
 
 The sounds are sent to the United States, 
 
 13 
 
f! 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 mostly to Boston, and the oil too is sent to the 
 United States, to heal her consumptives and 
 grease her machinery, but the cod himself takes 
 his last sea- voyage from Digby to the West 
 Indies. 
 
 The ^est Indians must have an unappeas- 
 able appetite for dried codfish, judging from 
 the quantities reputed to be sent there. Every 
 week-day Digby prepares codfish for the West 
 Indians, but not on Sunday. Those who think 
 it a sin for cod to dry on Sunday have raised 
 a bulwark about weak humanity that might be 
 tempted, by imposing a fine upon the public 
 appearance of the cod on the Lord's day. 
 
 This information was given M. by an owner 
 of cod-flakes who was out one Sunday morning 
 in quest of his cow. The good man was in his 
 work-a-day clothes, which made him feel 
 ashamed. He apologised for not being dressed 
 up as became a respectable man on Sunday, 
 saying he did not expect to meet with ladies. 
 
 This little incident well illustrates the con- 
 dition of the people here, and the feeling of 
 self-respect that seems to animate every one. 
 
 While the cod may not appear upon Sunday 
 without causing disgrace to his owner, still, 
 
 14 
 
r^i 
 
 Soi 
 
 D 
 
 UNDS URVING 
 
 ■ V *n<*3,r 'X'WW*v^W«!!l^i*?'?^t«t'^'^^ri*«?*^^ 
 
t 1 
 
Digby 
 
 ,,,, I '■" 
 
 there are exceptions to all rules, M.'s apolo- 
 getic Sabbath-breaker owned, and she there- 
 upon learned that the limit of Digby's piety is 
 the condition of her codfish, for if there should 
 be a week of bad weather, and the fish in 
 danger of spoiling, they may sun themselves of 
 a Sunday without injury to the souls of their 
 owners. 
 
 M.'s informant was himself a member of the 
 Church of England, because, as he explained, 
 the " English " were not as strict as the Bap- 
 tists and Methodists. He did not think it was 
 wicked to sketch on Sunday, a statement which 
 comforted M. greatly, as she was engaged at 
 the time in that sinful Sunday occupation. 
 
 
 IS 
 
I " II I ir i ir i niniinrm'T''"-~- — im ni 
 
 :•■ 
 
 II 
 
 CANNON FIELD 
 
 IN Digby the temptation to sketch is con- 
 stant, M. says. One wants to be at it all 
 the time. There are a few, a very few 
 picturesque houses, but it is the coast it- 
 self, the queer high wharves, the fish-flakes, the 
 storehouses, the old apple-trees on Cannon 
 Field, and the numberless views on every 
 hand outside the village that appeal to one 
 most. 
 
 Cannon Field is a place easy to be discovered 
 without help, but it does not detract from its 
 merits to have it enthusiastically pointed out 
 by a small boy whose peculiar anatomy is ex- 
 plained when he proceeds to unload from 
 blouse and pockets several quarts of live snails 
 which he deposits at your feet that he may the 
 better instruct you upon the topography of 
 Digby and criticise your sketch of a neighbour- 
 ing wharf. The small boy is always present 
 when one sits down to paint, and often he is 
 not unwelcome, particularly if he informs his 
 
 hearers, as this one did, vvith a pride quite justi- 
 
 i6 
 
 
 'k I 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 fiable, if the statement were correct, that his 
 father owned the Baptist Church of Boston. 
 
 Cannon Field is to the right upon coming 
 up from the wharf. It is at the top of a bluff 
 whose base is washed by the sea at high tide. 
 It is but an open grassy field, containing a 
 group of large willows, a few gnarled old apple 
 and cherry trees, half-a-dozen defunct cannon 
 with their noses in the ground, and two living 
 ones with their noses suspiciously sniffing the 
 air of the quiet Basin. 
 
 But there is a charm about it that makes one 
 go again and again, go and lie on the grass in 
 the warmth of the sun or the shade of the wil- 
 lows, and look off over the beautiful Annapolis 
 Basin with its one narrow, high-walled entrance 
 at Digby Gut. 
 
 Perhaps, as you lie thus, the scattered fisher- 
 men's houses on the other shore fade from 
 sight and the vessels in the Basin melt away, 
 leaving rock and water and dark evergreen 
 forest in possession. Then, perhaps, two small 
 ships, which are not fishing schooners nor any 
 craft that sail these waters to-day, come sailing 
 through the Digby Gut. The men on their 
 decks are wary and eager. Where Digby lies 
 a 17 
 
 m 
 
 ml 
 m 
 
r 
 
 ^npM 
 
 SSBOi 
 
 ' , 
 
 (I 
 
 ' I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 they see no town, only the scarred rock that 
 holds back the mighty tides, the long grass- 
 grown terrace where a town will one day lie, — 
 a town of aliens, — the hill behind grown thick 
 with firs ; these are all that greet their eager 
 eyes, and their two little ships sail on into the 
 lovely land-locked Basin. 
 
 You know them well. They are the French, 
 who scarcely three hundred years ago ventured 
 across the broad Atlantic in those little ships 
 of theirs. Through Digby Gut they came one 
 fair spring morning, the first white men whose 
 eyes had rested on those shores. In they 
 came, the advance guard of civilisation to a 
 new piece of the world. 
 
 The little ships sail up the Basin and out of 
 sight behind a wooded island. 
 
 So much for the dream on Caniion Field. 
 You rub your eyes and look about you. The 
 Basin is dotted over with boats ; the town of 
 Digby lies on the slopes behind you. British 
 guns point down the Basin in the direction the 
 two little ships have gone. But they are safe. 
 They sailed behind that island almost three 
 hundred years ago. The British guns cannot 
 touch them nor can aught destroy them : they 
 
 x8 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 of 
 
 are immortal, preserved in the history of three 
 great nations. 
 
 Perhaps the tall old apple-trees on Cannon 
 Field were placed there long ago by French 
 hands. They are very un-American apple- 
 trees indeed, and one is inclined to question 
 their title to be called apple-trees at all, until 
 among their scattered leaves are discovered 
 unequivocal it not tempting apples. 
 
 At the foot of the bluff is the deep sea basai 
 where the water rises and falls from twenty- 
 eight to thirty feet, twice each day. But one 
 does not realise the magnitude of the tides at 
 this point. One does not realise it at all at 
 first. The flowing of the tide is fast but 
 gradual : the mighty basin fills, fills, until the 
 tall pier is an ordinary wharf, with no hint of 
 a hole in its side, and a broad sheet of water 
 smiles and sparkles in the sun. 
 
 Through the Gut the tides come racing with 
 frightful velocity, making the smaller boats 
 watchful about entering, but once inside, the 
 waters spread without much commotion and 
 fill the great Basin to its brim. 
 
 Swiftly but gradually the waters subside, the 
 pier grows tall, long points of shining gravel 
 
 19 
 
 V^i 
 
•imm' 
 
 .,.J,,_, |ijl,IB|lP^j|HJ 
 
 PI 
 
 t 
 
 t 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 reach out into the water. With its seaweed- 
 painted rocks, its purple shining sands, its 
 bared weirs, the coast is much more pictur- 
 esque, though less impressive, at low tide. 
 
 Cannon Field is a place to dream in. Ro- 
 mance and history have woven their bright 
 fabrics before its very eyes. A remnant of 
 those Indians who fill our histories in that 
 confusing chapter known as the French and 
 Indian Wars have their tents to the right as 
 one faces the village, at the end of a little 
 green lane that borders on Cannon Field. 
 They are not there for scalps this bright sum- 
 mer day, but for bits of the white man's magic 
 silver, which they hope to get in exchange for 
 the baskets and moccasins they have woven 
 and worked upon through the long winter. 
 
 There is a pappoose in one of the tents 
 which the "American " ladies, with a unanim- 
 ity in humour which one hopes is not national, 
 all inquire the price of. 
 
 Digby houses are as ugly as two-story 
 wooden cottages, with narrow fa9ades and 
 steep roofs, must be, and they also possess 
 the inartistic virtues of cleanliness and new 
 paint. Few Digby houses go to ruin for lack 
 
 I 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 of paint ; consequently the town has a very new 
 look, and presents a thrifty and well-to-do ap- 
 pearance as exasperating to the artist as it is 
 doubtless gratifying to the inhabitant. But 
 these objectionable dwellings are in part re- 
 deemed by their flower-gardens. 
 
 Fish-flakes and flowers can do much for a 
 place, be it never so ugly, and in Digby there 
 are flowers everywhere. The people have a 
 pretty way of putting them wherever there is 
 a place to hold them. One sees pots of 
 blooming plants in the cellar windows on the 
 main street, where the houses add to their 
 other crimes against good taste that of open- 
 ing directly upon the sidewalk. Flower-pots 
 stand on brackets on the side of the house and 
 often bank up two sides of the little extended 
 entry-way. 
 
 It is pleasant to enter a house between walls 
 of flowers, and it is pleasant to stop before the 
 yards and interview the tangles of poppies and 
 pinks and all sorts of bright and spicy flower- 
 folk that do congregate in those places. 
 
 Digby flowers appear to grow for the mere 
 joy of it, they are so bright and spicy, and 
 crowd out the weeds with such vigour, some- 
 ax 
 
 t^i 
 
 'is 
 
 m 
 
 \i 
 
If 
 
 H^W 
 
 -"W 
 
 ^JJ.JJJJL«lllia!IU^P»^^^ 
 
 : 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 times overflowing the garden and straggling 
 out to the roadside. They remind one of 
 Celia Thaxter's flowers at the light-house on 
 the Isles of Shoals, seeming to have the same 
 qualities of brilliancy and fragrance. 
 
 A house without flowers is the rare excep- 
 tion in Digby. They give character to the 
 place and rob the cheap frame buildings of 
 half their ugliness, and occasionally they make 
 one charming. There is a delightful old gar- 
 den almost surrounding a tiny house, f?cing 
 Cannon Field. The house itself is covered 
 with vines which are vastly more becoming 
 than paint, and into the garden seem to have 
 come all the sweet old-fashioned posies from 
 long ago to now. 
 
 It is a pleasure to sauntei over from Can- 
 non Field and lean on the low fence, behind 
 which is such profusion of bloom. The back 
 yard, too, is a flower-garden, sharing the pre- 
 cious soil with the plum-trees and gooseberry 
 bushes. 
 
 If fruits and vegetables were to flourish in 
 Digby soil as the flowers do, the cod would 
 have a formidable rival, but the stern earth 
 yields its juices freely to only the coaxing root- 
 
 32 
 
 ^ 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 lets of its favourites, the flowers, and the people 
 have to send elsewhere for their cabbages. 
 We thank the earth for this : fish-flakes and 
 flowers belong to Digby ; cabbages belong 
 to anybody. 
 
 Digby has cherries, however. The place is 
 full of gnarled old trees, and there are orchards 
 of them in the country round about. 
 
 If Digby had picturesque houses, it would be 
 almost too charming a spot for the visitor. It 
 has two or three. They are to be found 
 on the Racquet, an inlet running in along one 
 side of the town. They are little gray, wide- 
 roofed, old fisherman*s houses, guiltless of paint 
 and very much the worse for wear. Digby no 
 doubt is ashamed of them, and they must be 
 very uncomfortable to live in, but with their 
 tall hollyhocks, their clustering fish-flakes, the 
 background of water, and the distant mountain- 
 top, they make distracting pictures. 
 
 Behind them are the wharves where the fish- 
 ing-schooners come in to leave their burdens 
 of cod. The ships sail up the Racquet in gal- 
 lant style. It is a pretty sheet of water, with 
 its curving shore-line and its background of 
 Reaman's Mountain ; and one never would sus- 
 
 23 
 
 ;i; 
 
A 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 pect, after watching the laden vessels enter, 
 that the haven they have sought is there for 
 but a few hours at a time, by the grace of 
 Neptune. 
 
 The Racquet, like many another bay along 
 this coast, is a gift of the giant tides of Fundy. 
 When the tide goes out, the ships lie on their 
 keels in the gravel, and the hard bed of the 
 Racquet becomes an excellent roadway for teams 
 that wish to reach the other shore. 
 
 In the morning one may cross the Racquet 
 dry-shod; in the afternoon laden vessels will 
 sail over his footprints. 
 
 There are no weirs in the Racquet ; but if 
 one desire those fantastic forms, let him walk 
 to the farther end of the town through its one 
 long street, and there he will come upon the 
 broad and winding Joggin. It is another tidal 
 basin, but the receding waters do not lay it 
 bare. Into it the fish come in shoals with the 
 coming of the water, but at the going out of 
 the water they remain, for the weirs have their 
 long arms about them. 
 
 These weirs are distinguished among their 
 kind by their simplicity. The fisherman does 
 not lavish costly nets upon them, as is the case 
 
 »4 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 along the New England shore. He simply 
 drives poles close together into the mud at low 
 tide, about them weaves the pliant branches of 
 trees in and out into a rude network, and to 
 the top of the poles ties brushwood to mark 
 the place of the weirs at high tide. 
 
 These primitive fish-snares seem to have no 
 definite form, but straggle about here, there, and 
 everywhere ; and the Joggin, with its purple 
 sands and grassy banks and its weirs trailing 
 reflections in the water, is a place one loves to 
 recall. 
 
 It is a gratification to be able to chronicle 
 the fact that in addition to her other virtues 
 simple Digby is still in the ox-cart period. 
 And this, despite the " Flying Bluenose " that 
 daily goes shrieking over the rails that have 
 been laid in her streets. It is oxen that unload 
 the vessels and do the hard work on the roads, 
 and oxen that bring the country people to 
 town. 
 
 Oxen exhale a pastoral something that affects 
 all their neighbourhood. Go gee-hawing 
 down Broadway with a yoke of oxen attached 
 to a broad-tired cart, and New York herself 
 would remember the days of her childhood, 
 
 25 
 
 
I fi 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 when Canal Street deserved its name even 
 more than at present, when the buxom milk- 
 maid filled her foaming pail in the Bowery. 
 Digby is a clean, wind-blown, beflowered, and 
 beflaked little fishing village, but when along 
 her streets the ox-carts go rumbling and sham- 
 bling, she becomes something more ; she has a 
 part in the fields and the grassy lanes as well 
 as in the salt sea. 
 
 Digby oxen have none of the coyness and 
 head-turnings common to their " American ** 
 kindred. They are apparently as unconcerned 
 and stolid at the approach of a stranger as was 
 the blind starfish in the cavern under the wharf. 
 They turn their heads neither to the right nor 
 to the left when in the yoke, but face front as 
 unswervingly as if on military parade. Their 
 eyes, which roll in the direction of the one 
 approaching, alone betray the curiosity natural 
 to their race. They have an un-oxlike dig- 
 nity and precision of movement, which is 
 rather impressive, and which is not wholly 
 owing to the superior character of Nova Scotia 
 cattle, for their ingenious masters have placed 
 the yoke upon their heads instead of about 
 their necks. 
 
 26 
 
 f. 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 A broad bar of wood lies across the necks 
 just behind the horns about which it fits closely. 
 It is held in place by strong leather straps bound 
 tightly across the foreheads just below the 
 horns. "When oxen are thus yoked, their 
 heads are almost as immovable as if held in 
 a vise. The tongue of the cart, which is at- 
 tached to the bar between the oxen, is held 
 very high, on a level with or even higher than 
 the eyes. It is amusing to see this head-gear 
 adjusted. In order sufficiently to tighten the 
 straps, the man must have some point of re- 
 sistance, and this he finds in the face of the ox 
 himself He braces his knee against the broad 
 and kindly front of his comrade and Hes back 
 on the strap with all his weight. The ox blinks 
 calmly on and says not a word. In spite of 
 his queer head-gear the Nova Scotia ox an- 
 swers to the same lingo as does his " Ameri- 
 can " brother, and the familiar " gee, haw, 
 back, g* long," may be heard mingling with 
 the tinkle of his bell any hour of the day in 
 Digby. 
 
 For each ox has his bell. It is an agreeable 
 bell with a pleasant tinkle-tankle, and rather 
 an expensive luxury, a pair of bells and their 
 
 37 
 
 i (1 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 straps costing three dollars and a half, so the 
 owner of an ox told us. 
 
 The DIgby ox has not quite " bells on his 
 fingers and rings on his toes, by which he 
 makes music wherever he goes," as was the 
 case with the young person in the nursery 
 rhyme, but he has a bell on his neck and a 
 little metal shoe on each of his toes, by which 
 he makes as good music wandering about the 
 stony byways in his hours of freedom as one 
 frequently hears from more elaborate instru- 
 ments. At least, it is never out of time or out 
 of tune. 
 
 One need not fear meeting our friend, for he 
 is the gentlest ox in the world ; much hand- 
 ling has made him that. He has lost the tra- 
 dition of horns as weapons, and looks upon 
 them only as a convenience for moving heavy 
 loads for other people. 
 
 Besides the ox-teams there ar^, the horses 
 drawing their low-swung trucks. If the Nova 
 Scotian has invented his head yoke, he has cer- 
 tainly borrowed his truck from his brother the 
 " American," or is it vice versa ? for it is the 
 same convenient means of transportation the 
 Cape Cod man employs. The bottom of 
 
 28 
 
orses 
 ^ova 
 cer- 
 the 
 the 
 the 
 of 
 
 Ox WITH Head Yoke 
 
V 
 
 mmm 
 
 I 
 
 
 [ , 
 
 :! 
 
 -i- 
 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 the cart is so swung from the hubs that it is 
 only four or five inches from the ground, sav- 
 ing a great deal of strength, one should think, 
 in loading and unloading. One wonders why 
 the Yankee has not made more use of this 
 idea, and why one does not see it in the flat 
 prairie towns of the West. 
 
 What is the law that decrees certain imple- 
 ments and customs to be retained within cer- 
 tain limits ? Why does the farmer in one 
 Rhode Island county rake his hay as his fore- 
 fathers were wont, and in three adjoining ones 
 gather it speedily by means of a long rope ? 
 Why does the low-swung truck, local to Cape 
 Cod, crop out again in Nova Scotia ? 
 
 There is a tremendous vis inertia in human 
 affairs that preserves the individuality of places 
 in spite of the levelling power of the " new 
 civilisation." Blessings on it! Long may 
 it preserve Digby's dusty fish-flakes and her 
 military oxen with tHeir tinkling bells ! 
 
 It would not do to leave Digby without 
 making the acquaintance of the famous " Digby 
 chickens." These are not feathered bipeds, but 
 good red herrings. They are large and oily, 
 and their smoked skins are a beautiful golden 
 
 29 
 
 m 
 
I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 * ■ ■ ' '— - — ■■,—,.- - ■■- II ■ ^ 
 
 bronze, played over by bright, iridescent hues. 
 To give an idea of these when properly " kip- 
 pered " would excite u: 3 envy in the hearts 
 of all who grasped the idea. These favoured 
 fish are called " Digby angels " in other towns 
 of Nova Scotia, but it is to be feared this is 
 due to a spirit of mockery engendered by 
 jealousy. 
 
 Reluctantly we prepared to leave Digby, and 
 one morning found ourselves on the " Flying 
 Bluenose," and speeding along the Annapolis 
 Basin in the direction the two little ships had 
 sailed so long ago. 
 
 " Bluenose" in Nov^ cotia is equivalent to 
 " Yankee " in New England. The derivation of 
 " Yankee " is uncertain, — nobody knows exactly 
 where it came from, nor who invented and first 
 applied it ; consequently there is a pleasant mys- 
 tery about it which enables us to forget its 
 plebeian sound and even to feel proud of any 
 claim to the title. 
 
 But there is no reclaiming haze of mystery 
 about the meaning of "Bluenose," though the 
 Bluenoses themselves are frequently unable, 
 or possibly ashamed, to explain it. One old 
 v»'oman told us it came from the " Flying 
 
 30 
 
 \^\ 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 Bluenose." But her daughter explained, look- 
 ing askance at us, as though to make sure we 
 were serious in our desire for information, 
 " You ought to see us in November ! " 
 
 It seems there is a " Flying Yankee" train 
 on the " American " side ; and Nova Scotia, not 
 to be outdone by " them Yanks," started the 
 " Flying Bluenose " on her side, which was not 
 strictly original, though it is considered com- 
 mendable, as the " Flying Bluenose " is a very 
 good express train, running all the way from 
 Yarmouth, on the western point of Nova Scotia, 
 to Halifax, a couple of hundred miles away as 
 the road runs. 
 
 Next to originality is the power to know a 
 good thing when it is seen, and then to imi- 
 tate it. 
 
 The " Flying Bluenose " crossed the high 
 bridge just out of Digby and bore us toward 
 one of the most interesting historic spots in 
 North America. 
 
 It is the spot where the two French ships 
 came to anchor, bringing the first white settlers 
 to a new world. The place is called Annapolis 
 now, though at its founding in 1605 '^ ^^^^ 
 the name of Port Royal, and is, as every one 
 
 31 
 
 
 4 
 
 ' w>WV-t .(».—*-» •--.•>.-1.-«,»'«fc-« 
 

 i 
 
 .7 
 
 )■ 'i 
 
 • i 'i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 m I ■- I- ■' ■ ■■■■ ~ " ^ ■■ 11-. — ^ 
 
 knows, next to St. Augustine the oldest Euro- 
 pean settlement in North America. It seemed 
 a pity to go h^^rrying by it when we saw the 
 lovely meadows sloping to the town, their yel- 
 lows, greens, browns, and reds mingling in a 
 half summer, half autumn mood. 
 
 The grass-grown earthworks were inviting, 
 too, and the old gray stone magazine standing 
 in the centre gave an air of antiquity to the 
 place. The water was out, and the red and 
 brown sands on the shores of the Annapolis 
 Basin lay exposed, adding their charm of colour 
 to the scene. 
 
 But we were to see no more of Annapolis 
 than the glimpse from the train. M. was 
 afraid to. She wished to preserve the romance 
 and mystery with which her imagination had 
 enveloped it ; and having recently lost the life- 
 long mystery of the Bay of Fundy by too 
 great familiarity with that cheery and in no 
 way mysterious body of water, she felt that 
 she could not afford the risk of depleting 
 the storehouse of her imagination any farther 
 at present. 
 
 So we went on, imagining Port Royal as it 
 was when in possession of the French, smoking 
 
 32 
 
 i\ 
 
Cannon Field 
 
 their lobster-claw pipes ; and in spite of their 
 precarious tenure of home and life in a country 
 of savages, revelling through that winter of 
 long ago and instituting the Order of the Good 
 Time. They had their fun, but \t did not last, 
 for enemies in the mother country as well as 
 from abroad quickly shifted the actors from one 
 scene to another ; and out of the confusion of 
 '.he times there stands clearly but one poetic 
 form, that of a woman, Madame La Tour. 
 Perhaps she does not belong specially to Port 
 Royal, but she does belong to the history of 
 that time ; and by her heroic deeds has earned 
 a place in the memory of man, — a place which 
 will be recognised when her poet arises to sing 
 her into fame. She stands waiting, a dim fig- 
 ure, for the Longfellow who shall take her by 
 the hand and place her glowing in the eyes and 
 the hearts of the people. 
 
 The Annapolis River, which enters the head 
 of the Basin, owes the greater part of its vol- 
 ume to the tide-water. Its channel is deep and 
 gullied, as seen at low tide, and its banks are 
 composed of sleek, shining mud that, half the 
 time uncovered, yet never has time to dry. As 
 we follow its course we see the ships lying 
 3 33 
 
 i 
 
 
 r\ 
 

 l1i'BMI.,aitfrl>iWlfcH 
 
 ) 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 high up on the mud banks, miles from water 
 enough to float them. 
 
 One dropping suddenly down upon this 
 strange sight might well wonder if the days of 
 magic were gone, or if this withdrawal of the 
 waters was a freak of some revengeful gnome. 
 A few hours, however, redeems the river. In- 
 credible as it seems, the water comes hastening 
 in, up the long miles, until the deep gullies are 
 full rivers and the ships are afloat and able to 
 sail wherever they choose. 
 
 As one follows up the Annapolis Valley, 
 North Mountain stretches its long low range 
 against the sky at the left, while South Moun- 
 tain runs parallel to it, but lower and more 
 broken, at the right. 
 
 The Annapolis Basin lies long and narrow 
 between the two low mountain ranges, and at 
 its head receives the Annapolis River, which 
 flows through the northern part of the valley, 
 its course extending in the same general direc- 
 tion as that of the Basin, making the latter 
 seem like a sudden expansion of the river. 
 
 As we finally left the river we passed over 
 the low water-shed that separates the Annapolis 
 from the Cornwallis Valley. The Annapolis 
 
 34 
 
' 
 
 Cannon Field 
 
 River flows to the southwest, the rivers of 
 the Cornwallis Valley to the northeast. 
 
 As we crossed the water-shed we entered a 
 new world of history and romance. The con- 
 fused events that cluster about Port Royal gave 
 way to the sinij)le peace of the Acadians, — that 
 sense of peace which even their sad expulsion 
 cannot quite drive from our hearts. 
 
 As we crossed that little rise of ground we 
 neared the dike-lands of the Acadians and the 
 home of Evangeline. 
 
 '% 
 
 ') 
 
 U 
 
-\i 
 
 mBoms 
 
 wm 
 
 i M 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ' 
 
 \\ 
 
 !i 
 
 |i-; / 
 
 III 
 ACADIA 
 
 ACADIA is the original French name 
 for Nova Scotia. It is said to come 
 from the Indian ca^ie or kadi, which 
 means " abounding in," and is often 
 found as an affix in the names of places, as, for 
 instance, Shubenacadie, " abounding in ground- 
 nuts," and the euphonious and simple Ap- 
 chechkumoochwakadi, "abounding in black 
 ducks." 
 
 While " Acadia " was in a general way- 
 applied to the whole of Nova Scotia, to 
 most minds it now has a more restricted 
 meaning. 
 
 We think of it as that Utopia where Long- 
 fellow's Evangeline lived and loved, and whence 
 her people were driven forth. It is a land of 
 poetry, reclaimed from the sea by the dikes of 
 the old Acadian farmers, and by the traveller is 
 looked for in what is known as the Cornwallis 
 Valley. 
 
 Poetry often vanishes in the presence of the 
 reality, and one's first thought upon entering 
 
 36 
 
 /■ 
 
Acadia 
 
 
 the Cornwallis Valley is very likely of the im- 
 proved appearance of the apples, for along the 
 line of the railroad they are small and unin- 
 viting, until the obscure line of water-shed that 
 separates the Annapolis and Cornwallis Valleys 
 has been crossed, when a notable change for 
 the better comes over the orchards. 
 
 It was a pleasant, pastoral land through 
 which the " Flying Bluenose " hurried us, but 
 for some distance there was nothing remarkable 
 about it, for we noticed no dikes until we 
 changed cars at Kentville and were bounced 
 along the little branch road that leads to Kings- 
 port, which is situated on Minas Basin. 
 
 W^e did not go as far as Kingsport at this 
 time, however, but stopped a mile short of there 
 at Canning, a small village with its one long 
 street lined on the river-side by straggling 
 shops of a moribund aspect. Large trees and 
 ample dooryards give Canning a pleasant and 
 home-like look, and at the rear of the shops 
 the Habitant River rolls restlessly back and 
 forth. 
 
 The Habitant is a tidal stream, all that is 
 left of a once mighty flood that brought large 
 ships to Canning's wharves. Where once the 
 
 37 
 
 lii 
 
 ■I 
 
 '' 
 
 i 
 

 1 \ 
 
 ^i 
 
 ^ m 
 
 ] 
 
 : i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 waters spread are level plains of great fertility, 
 for the spade of the dike-maker has been at 
 work, and the chastened Habitant is now a 
 narrow stream, its winding course bordered by 
 a narrow green embankment that in the dis- 
 tance looks like a line of raised embroidery 
 traversing some gigantic pattern. Beyond the 
 Habitant lie the reclaimed meadow-lands now 
 dotted with haystacks. 
 
 Beyond the meadows is a lovely stretch of 
 highlands, the termination of South Mountain. 
 This was our first view of the dike-lands, and 
 it took some time to realise the magnitude of 
 what has been accomp.ished. In fact, it cannot 
 be understood at this point. 
 
 The Habitant is a deep gully of red and 
 shining mud as we saw it at low tide. Two 
 or three small sail-boats were lying up high 
 and dry on its rim. There was but a thread 
 of muddy water stealing seaward, along the 
 bottom of the gully, soon to be met and 
 turned back by the incoming tide of Minas 
 Basin, that twice every day fills the doomed 
 Habitant, at its departure leaving another 
 layer of the red ooze which is slowly but 
 surely obliterating the channel of the river. 
 
 38 
 
>1 
 
 < 
 
 .J 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 if 
 
t?!! 
 
 ¥> 
 
 1 
 
 ^#1 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ,l» &i 
 
Acadia 
 
 Four miles from Canning, on a commanding 
 spur of North Mountain, is an open space 
 called Look Off. This is one of the best 
 points from which to view the dike-lands, and 
 thither we went one fair day. 
 
 North Mountain nowhere attains an alti- 
 tude of more than six hundred feet, which 
 scarcely entitles it to the name of mountain. 
 Yet the view from Look Off is more impres- 
 sive than many a scene beheld from a higher 
 point. 
 
 North Mountain rises abruptly from the 
 plain, so that the wide vista of the Cornwallis 
 Valley lay a vast, fair scene before us. We 
 looked down upon the far-reaching dike-lands 
 of the old Acadian farmers, the scene of the 
 tragedy and romance of their lives, the fair 
 meadows they had stolen bit by bit from the 
 sea an imperishable memorial of their labors. 
 
 Minas Basin, like the beautiful Annapolis 
 Basin, is an inlet from the Bay of Fundy. It 
 forms the northern boundary to the Cornwallis 
 Valley ; and as the tides come in, higher even 
 than those in the Annapolis Basin, they flood 
 the low lands and race up the river channels 
 
 ror many mi 
 
 les. 
 
 39 
 
It 31 . 
 
 IP K'^^^ 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Three tidal rivers traverse the length of the 
 Cornwallis Valley, — the Habitant, which was 
 the nearest to us, and was seen here and there 
 like a ribbon of silver ; the Canard, of which 
 we could catch glimpses ; and the Cornwallis, 
 farthest away and largest of all, from which 
 the whole valley gets its name. 
 
 These rivers empty into a v,ide bay or lagoon 
 that encroaches upon the northern border of 
 the Cornwallis Valley. At high tide this bay 
 is a sheet of water ; at low tide the red sands 
 are bare half-way to Minas, and are interspersed 
 with blue pools and interrupted by the shining 
 mouths of the three rivers that wind down to 
 the sea. 
 
 The channels of the rivers are deep and nar- 
 row, and wherever they go through the fertile 
 valley the patient dikes accompany them, 
 winding and turning with the winding and 
 turning of the rivers, unbroken banks of green 
 grass, frail enough to look at when one thinks 
 of their mission, yet trusted sentinel;? lo keep 
 back the water until even Fundy's mighty rush 
 has been conquered, and the diked rivers are 
 slowly being silted full and themselves help to 
 form a barrier against the incoming tides. 
 
 40 
 
Acadia 
 
 Much of the northern part of the Cornwallis 
 Valley, which for many miles is mostly low- 
 land, and was originally salt marsh, has been 
 reclaimed from the sea, and in many places the 
 farm-land still lies below high-water mark. 
 
 The reclaimed land has not been the work 
 of a moment nor of a generation. The valley 
 we see to-day is not the valley the Acadians 
 first looked upon, nor yet the valley from 
 which they were finally expelled. Their suc- 
 cessors have as steadily plied the diking spade 
 as they did themselves, and the work of re- 
 claiming new land is still going on wherever 
 opportunity offers. The breaking of a dike 
 means inundation and devastation to the land 
 with a loss of two or three years' crops, as it 
 takes the earth that long to recover from the 
 taste of the salt water. 
 
 Standing on Look Off we saw the general 
 outlines of the valley as it is to-day, and saw, 
 too, in a large way, the method of its emer- 
 gence from the bottom of the sea. For winding 
 here and there were gently rounded gullies 
 down which now ran streams of trees and 
 bushes, but which once were water-courses 
 where the retreating tides drained back to 
 
 41 
 
 \\ 
 
 i 
 
T 
 
 ^/l 
 
 Jl 
 
 11: 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Minas. Little by little the dikes encroached 
 upon the sea, cutting off first one, then another 
 of these tidal streams, until only their forms 
 are now left to tell the story of what they 
 once were. 
 
 The Cornwallis Valley was aglow with 
 colour the day we saw it from Look Off, — 
 yellow stubble of oats and barley mingled with 
 patches of bright red and of vivid green where 
 vegetables were growing, while apple orchards 
 everywhere lent their dark green, and clumps 
 of firs added their black to the scene. 
 
 Scattered about were villages nearly hidden 
 by trees, while detached houses looked like toys 
 in the fields. Canning's spires showed over 
 her tree-tops, and Kingsport lay in full view 
 on the shore of Minas Basin. 
 
 In the distance, beyond the shine of the 
 Cornwallis River, lay Grand Pre, the scene of 
 the Great Expulsion, the home of Evangeline, 
 the central point of interest for all that region. 
 We looked at the blur ^'^ ^^ distant hillside 
 which we were told v Pre, with a rush 
 
 of emotion. .. mei the poetry and 
 
 romance of the ,ist re .aced the prose of the 
 present. But our th ughts soon returned to 
 
 42 
 
 
Acadia 
 
 the actual scene before us : the opening of the 
 five rivers was a fairy picture, so dainty was 
 the blue and green of the water against the 
 faint red sands. 
 
 For the three tidal rivers are not all the 
 rivers we see from our high place. From 
 behind a long point of land in the distance 
 over by Grand Pre shines the silvery mouth 
 of the Gaspereaux, which flows through a 
 valley of the same name behind the high- 
 land that far away looks so blue, and the 
 broad mouth of the Avon makes up like a 
 wide bay into the distant land. 
 
 At our very feet is the valley of the Pereau. 
 But where is the river Pereau ? It is where the 
 Habitant and the Canard will one day be ; 
 for where once a tidal river guided the waters 
 back to the sea are now green meadows. 
 
 The Pereau has been diked down to within 
 an inch of its life and within a mile of the sea. 
 This broad little mile-long river has a pretty 
 curved dike across its head. It cannot reach 
 above the dike, and it can hardly reach to it, 
 for this stern dike has not only cut off all 
 advance, but is the cause of the filling in of 
 what little of the river is left. And one day 
 
 43 
 
 1 
 ( 
 
 I 
 
f 
 
 ff 
 
 1 
 
 Down North and Up yi long 
 
 they will bniUl w dike yet lower, and then 
 fttiothcr and another, until the IVrcau Kivcr, 
 like the Acavhans themselves, will he hut a 
 name. It is very pretty at the month of the 
 Pcreaii. Kck\ dill's staml out in the water free 
 from the mainland, and what banks the river 
 has left are steep and red. 
 
 The shores of Minas arc steep, and are evi- 
 dently the sourec from which the dike-lands 
 have received their fertile soil. The red rocks 
 of the ct)ast have been reduced hy the irresist- 
 ible force of the water to the red nuui of the 
 fields. 'I'he tide for ages has swept in, turbid 
 with particles of the rocks it has ground to 
 powder, at\il as its waters ilrained slowlv back 
 to the sea, red mud has been left on the plains 
 and in the rivers. 
 
 There is talk of building a monster dike 
 across the mouth of the lagoon into which the 
 three tidal riv^crs empty, thus reclaiming a vast 
 tract of land at one effort. If this is done, 
 good-bye to the Habitant, the Canard, and the 
 CornwalHs. They would be in worse plight 
 than the Pereau is now, for there won hi not 
 be so much as a trace of their turbid tide- 
 waters left It would be a pity to obliterate 
 
Acadia 
 
 fc^ — - — — . — — . 1 . ■ 
 
 these rivers. (>uecr gushes iiv the soil with 
 their strcjims constiiiitly turncci i)y the god- 
 dess who rules the tides, Aeauia would not 
 be Aeiuliji without them. 
 
 7'hink of h.'iving to consult the almanac or 
 look out of the window to see whether the 
 river that flows through your town happens 
 to be running up stream or down, or not at 
 all 1 Yet this is what the dweller in Acadia 
 nuist do when he wishes to float his boat. 
 
 Fortunately for the I labitant, the Canard, 
 and the Cornwallis, there is a good deal of 
 red tape involved in building a new dike, so 
 they may breathe freely for yet a time. May 
 they long continue to run uphill, then run 
 down, then run dry, in their present agreeable 
 fashion! Not all of them run dry, however; 
 some have a fresh-water stream of their own ; 
 and where this is the case they can never be 
 diked wholly out of existence. 
 
 We had noticed very little wild life of any 
 kind in Nova Scotia. Hirds there may be in 
 the spring, but at this time their forms were 
 seldom seen. The most noticeable creatures 
 were small grasshoppers with large ideas of 
 the value of noise. Each appeared to be pos- 
 
 45 
 
 
 'i 
 
;; 1 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 sessed of an indestructible pair of clappers 
 upon which it played a resounding rat-tat-tat 
 at short intervals. They started from under 
 our feet at Digby and fled from before us at 
 Look Off 
 
 It was some time before we could really 
 believe the loud and regular rattle came from 
 such tiny performers. We should have liked 
 to see them working their clappers, but could 
 not catch them at it, nor catch them at all, they 
 were so overloaded with suspicion, and when 
 v/e were yet far away scurried off rat-tatting to 
 yet safer distances. 
 
 It was on sunny Look Off that we made our 
 first and ordy acquaintance 'vith Nova Scotia 
 bees. While lying on the ground we had 
 noticed a distinct odour of honey, for which 
 we could not account, as there were no flowers 
 near. 
 
 At first too full of the beauties of the Corn- 
 wallis Valley to see anything else, we finally 
 noticed numbers of tiny gray gauzy-winged bees 
 flying about and hovering over the ground near 
 us. The ground was perforated in all direc- 
 tions with round holes into which here and there 
 
 a bee disappeared, her hindmost legs laden with 
 
 46 
 
Acadia 
 
 balls of bright yellow pollen. It soon dawned 
 upon us that we were lying at our ease upon a 
 colony of bees* nests, — a position more novel 
 than assuring. The bees did not offer to sting 
 us, although we were sadly interfering with their 
 domestic duties by covering up their holes. 
 
 As soon as we realised the state of affairs, we 
 departed in as orderly a manner as was com- 
 patible with extreme haste. Curiosity, how- 
 ever, compelled us to dig out one of the holes. 
 The little hole went down for some distance in 
 a straight line and then turned and for an inch 
 or two ran parallel to the surface, then went 
 down for a short distance in a slanting direc- 
 tion. About half-way down the long gallery, 
 we dug out Madam Bee, very much flustered, 
 and overwhelmed with grief and indignation. 
 
 At the termination to the gallery we found 
 a mass of pollen about as large as a white bean 
 and enclosed in a glistening case, looking like 
 a very delicate pupa case, and made, no doubt, 
 from a secretion from the bee's mouth. This 
 little object when crushed had a strong odour of 
 honey and also a slight odour of cheese. Into 
 this mass of nutriment the bee had doubtless 
 deposited her egg. It must have taken a long 
 
 47 
 
 ! 
 

 
 i 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 S 
 
 s 
 
 n 
 
 I 
 
 in 
 
 1 
 
 : , 
 
 .1-- ^ 
 
 i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 time and a vast amount of hard ' vork to dig 
 that long gallery through the hard earth and 
 collect that mass of pollen and honey bit by 
 bit from distant flowers. 
 
 As we looked at the ruins of a once happy 
 home, we felt the self-satisfied regret of the 
 conqueror at the discomfiture of the conquered. 
 The self-control of the bees was remarkable. 
 They flew about us in preat excitement, but 
 their anger was not of that stinging nature which 
 makes one so anxious to respect the privacy of 
 bees. One flew at M. and administered a 
 sharp admonitory rap on the cheek, but used 
 no more pointed argument. 
 
 The Christian fortitude of these bees might 
 have made us uncomfortably ashamed of our 
 part in the adventure, had it not occurred to us 
 in time that possibly the reason for their for- 
 bearance was not because they were good, but 
 because they were stingless. 
 
 This thought recalled the picture of Hum- 
 boldt sitting on the mountain-side above 
 Caracas, where small hairy stingless bees crawled 
 over his hands. These bees were called 
 Angelitos" by the natives; and we on North 
 Mountain also met our Angelitos. 
 
 48 
 
 (C 
 
IV 
 ACADIA'S CROPS 
 
 THE people say, with as much mod- 
 esty as the statement allows, that the 
 land reclaimed from the sea is the 
 most fertile in the world. One goes 
 there, expecting he scarcely knows what in the 
 way of luxuriant vegetation, and is astonished 
 to find this remarkable fertility and endless 
 boasting devoted to — hay ! 
 
 Hay is no doubt a very good thing — in its 
 way. Still, one does not expect to find it the 
 main crop of " the richest soil on earth," when, 
 too, that favoured soil is decidedly limited in 
 quantity. We were heretofore accustomed to 
 think of hay as an agricultural product ob- 
 tained from the dooryards and fence corners 
 and a few hay-fields here and there where 
 the land was not needed for more important 
 crops. 
 
 There are no wheat-fields in the Cornwallis 
 Valley ; the people say they can raise wheat, 
 but are full of excuses for not doing it. The 
 4 49 
 
 iltl 
 
 11 
 
., J- 
 
 \ ( 
 
 i ; • 
 
 \ 
 
 If SI 
 
 .1 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 ' 1 
 
 
 1! 
 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 
 \, , 
 
 '■ ' i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 truth is, wheat does not thrive as well as hay. 
 Every effort was made to impress upon us the 
 marvellous fertility of the soil — expressed in 
 terms of hay. They told us .hey cut three 
 tons to the acre. But they might as well have 
 said thirty, such was on • ignorance concerning 
 Nova Scotia's favourite crop, and we neither 
 looked nor were the least astonished. Our 
 indifference troubled them, and from the ques- 
 tions they asked we suspect they feared we 
 knew of a place in "America" where more 
 was cut. 
 
 Before we left the Cornwallis Valley, the 
 mists of our Ignorance had been penetrated by 
 the light of knowledge. In spite of ourselves 
 we finally acquired a certain reverence for hay 
 and a proper appreciation of three tons to the 
 acre. M. was quickly reconciled to it because 
 the stacks were so pretty, and the shorn 
 meadow-land was lovely in the autumn land- 
 scape. It is not probable the people them- 
 selves consume hay ; but what do they do with 
 it ? For there are no fiocks or herds to be 
 seen. And what else can they consume, when 
 their broad and fertile lands are broad and 
 fertile hay-fields ? Hay and apples ! 
 
 so 
 
Acadia s Crops 
 
 Acadia's crop was a fragrant one at least, and 
 if we could not at once appreciate three tons of 
 hay to the acre, we were able to grasp the 
 meaning of a hundred barrels of apples to the 
 acre, which netted the farmer two dollars a 
 barrel. That was better than raising oranges 
 in Florida. We happened to know something 
 about the latter occupation, and for a moment 
 coveted Nova Scotia's orchards in exchange 
 for certain groves whose golden hopes had 
 never blossomed into realities. 
 
 It was something of a comfort to know the 
 Cornwallis Valley apple-trees require almost as 
 much petting as Florida oranges, — that they 
 are subject to disease and parasite and have to 
 be scrubbed and scraped, and, for f^'l we know 
 to the contrary, sprayed occasionaJ) 
 
 It had always seemed to us as though apple- 
 trees happened^ as though they grew by some 
 special law of their own and asked nothing of 
 man but room to stand in. But this is not so. 
 If man wants fair apples, he must needs look 
 to his trees. 
 
 The apple-trees of Acadia are not the gnarled 
 and delightful friends of our New England 
 childhood. They have regular rounded crowns, 
 
 51 
 
 
r. 
 
 i ■! 
 
 1 fi 
 
 d l 
 
 fi i 
 
 ''^ 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 and, in spite of :-ome wilful turnings of tough 
 limbs, are on the whole rather conventional 
 and strait-laced apple-trees. 
 
 The orchards have something of the regu- 
 larity which so displeases at one's first sight 
 of an orange grove. But the orchards are 
 more picturesque than the groves, because an 
 apple-tree, no matter how well bred, never can 
 escape a touch of wilfulness. 
 
 Usually apple-trees growing near the sea 
 depart very decidedly from the inland form. 
 On the more exposed parts of Cape Cod, for 
 instance, where they can be persuaded to grow 
 at all, they act in a most grotesque manner. 
 As if afraid to raise their heads for fear of 
 having them blown off, they branch out close 
 to the ground, and sometimes have a crown as 
 broad as an ordinary full-grown tree and a 
 trunk only a few inches in height. 
 
 Others, as if trying to get above the winds, 
 or as if their fibres had been drawn out by 
 them, grow tall and narrow with a crown that 
 often leans away from the prevailing winds. 
 These are the sort that make certain parts of 
 Rhode Island so picturesque. 
 
 But the Nova Scotia apple-trees keep to 
 
 5a 
 
Acadia s Crops 
 
 i 
 
 their ancestral form as a rule, though we did 
 see some orchards not far from Minas, where 
 the crowns had turned over in defiance of law 
 and order, until the branches on the lower 
 side touched the ground. It gave them a 
 rakish air, as though they had their hats 
 cocked on one side, and made them look 
 very jolly. 
 
 Apples were not ripe when we were among 
 the orchards, but they were nearly grown, and 
 showed what they would become. Either it 
 pays as well to care for apple-trees as for any- 
 thing else, or Nova Scotia apples are, if not, 
 as their owners modestly claim, the very best 
 apples in the world, yet very fine apples in- 
 deed. For, as we noticed when first seeing 
 them, they are fair, well formed, and uniform 
 in size. One almost never sees a gnarled or 
 spotted apple on these trees. 
 
 The apples themselves are hard and crisp, 
 as though they knew a thing or two, and felt 
 the responsibility of preparing themselves for 
 a trip to London, or to the West Indies, 
 where they find their market. They retain 
 their crispness when ripe, and are juicy and 
 good in flavour, as we had opportunity to dis- 
 ss 
 
fWf^ 
 
 Sl-a-^.-.Jf^..JlM]. l.i..!»^||^^ 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 cover later. They command higher prices at 
 home than abroad ; at least we bought them in 
 Baddeck at the rate of six dollars a barrel. 
 
 The Nova Scotians complain that they can- 
 not get good apples because the best are sent 
 to England. Discrimination against home 
 consumers and in favour of foreign markets is 
 not peculiar to Nova Scotia, however. One 
 hears the same story the world over wherever 
 the commodities of a place are exported. 
 
 We recall the apology of a Florida Cracker 
 from whom we tried to buy some early vege- 
 tables: "We have none that are fit to eat. 
 We shipped all the best. All that we could n't 
 ship we fed to the pigs, and what the pigs 
 would n't eat we ate ourselves." 
 
 London pays well where apples are good, but 
 does not take her fruit upon faith even from 
 her loyal provinces, as a certain farmer learned 
 to his cost. The story goes that he shipped 
 his apples as they grew, best and poorest to- 
 gether, but by some chance the best were on 
 top. In London each barrel was tested, 
 clear to the bottom^ and all of his were rejected. 
 Thus he lost his whole crop plus the cost of 
 transportation, a calamity which ruined him 
 
 54 
 
Acadia s Crops 
 
 m 
 
 past recovery. We were very sorry to hear 
 such a story of an Acadian farmer. 
 
 Kingsport is only one mile from Canning. 
 It is on Minas Basin and is the port whence 
 many of the Cornwallis Valley apples are 
 shipped. 
 
 Potatoes are also shipped from here in large 
 quantities, and the Cornwallis Valley farmer, we 
 were told, is the aristocrat of the Lower Prov- 
 inces. His neighbours accuse him of having 
 grown lazy under prosperity, and pretend to 
 look scornfully upon hiis sloth, though one 
 suspects this attitude is but the cloak to a 
 secret envy. 
 
 Apples and potatoes do come easy in the 
 Cornwallis Valley, and the necessity for work 
 is the cause of work the world over, still, we 
 have seen lazier people in our travels than the 
 Cornwallis Valley farmers. 
 
 Naturally the people In this part of the 
 country do not look with favour upon annexa- 
 tion. They say, " Look at the American 
 farmer, then look at us ! " One does not like 
 to look at the American farmer and then look 
 at them. 
 
 The farmer here is the man of the com- 
 
 55 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
Tfr 
 
 % \ 
 
 i1 
 
 I:: 
 
 'M 
 
 I 
 
 i I 
 
 i 
 
 .( 
 
 ' i 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 munity, he is rich, — in a mild way, — and he 
 is sure of a comfortable living from his well- 
 tilled acres. He feeds the rest of the world, 
 and in return is allowed enough to eat himself. 
 
 In the towns, we are told, it is different. 
 The struggle there is severe, and the people 
 do not look with disfavour upon annexation. 
 They have a sort of undefined feeling that an- 
 nexation would somehow turn the stream of 
 the farmer's prosperity into the coffers of the 
 townspeople. It is very likely it would. 
 
 Kingsport is a convenient place from which 
 to visit Parrsboro, on the other shore of Minas, 
 as a boat runs between the two places. 
 
 It is a pity to cut the Acadian country in 
 two by interpolating Parrsboro between the 
 region about Canning and the Grand Pre 
 portion, but it is very much the easier way. 
 As the narrator, however, is not, like the trav- 
 eller, influenced by considerations of time or of 
 cost, Parrsboro shall wait its turn, and Grand 
 Pre stand where it belongs geographically and 
 historically. 
 
 ii 
 
 S6 
 
GRAND PRfi 
 
 WAS it an accident, or the kindly 
 guidance of the Spirit of Romance 
 that led us to enter Grand Pre on 
 the fifth of September, the very date 
 of the expulsion of the Acadians ? 
 
 Grand Pre lies on a hillside overlooking the 
 Cornwallis Valley, but on the opposite side of 
 the valley from North Mountain and the 
 Look Off. From it one sees Canning and 
 Kentville in the distance, where they lie in 
 their meadows between it and North Mountain. 
 It is a small and quiet village as one sees it 
 to-day, its houses still stretching down one 
 long street, as was probably the fashion of 
 times gone by, when Grand Pre was the home 
 of the Acadians and the thatched roofs of the 
 farmhouses straggled from the Grand Pre of 
 to-day to Horton's Landing on Minas' shore, 
 a mile or more away. 
 
 The houses now are less picturesque than 
 the Acadian homes, for their roofs are not 
 thatehed, and they do not depart often enough 
 
 57 
 
 I J 
 
 1:' 
 
 K) 
 
I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 yi—ii.i.i, „ — i.i.,.i I I — - I I — " ■ ■■ I.I. I — 
 
 from the prim and painted Digby type to make 
 the village as attractive as it might be. Still, 
 the houses here are, on the whole, better than 
 any we have yet seen, and there is many a 
 charming sketch to he found in this, the 
 most famous spot in the Lower Provinces, or 
 for that matter in all Canada, for nowhere else 
 in British America have history and poetry 
 combined in so wonderful a manner to roman- 
 ticise a place. 
 
 On a high hill at the edge of the village is 
 a comfortable inn, once a charming old house 
 with a quaint doorway, but now obscured and 
 vulgarised by a new addition which has noth- 
 ing to recommend it but its internal comfort 
 and the unparalleled views from its many 
 windows. 
 
 From this hill-top the Cornwallis Valley is 
 seen stretching into the far distance, a vision 
 of beauty, as it lies with the changing light on 
 its distant meadows and its salt marshes glow- 
 ing with rich colour, '^'or not all the marsh- 
 land has been reclaimed ; there still are broad 
 reaches of exquisite beauty, to delight the eye 
 and tempt the farmer of the future to new 
 leclamations. 
 
 '■^S 
 
Grand Pre 
 
 ? 
 
 At one*s feet lie those broad meadows of 
 Grand Pre, for from these prairies the place 
 derived its name. Far away shine the spires 
 of the village churches. 
 
 Beyond the valley and the villages is the 
 wall of North Mountain, stopping abruptly at 
 Minas* deep waters> its bold front of Blomidon 
 defying the rushing tides. 
 
 Minas Basin with its surging waters lies 
 blue in the distance, deceptively smiling and 
 peaceful seeming, on a fair day, like a calm 
 spirit that nothing could perturb. Beyond 
 Minas rise the low mountains of the Cobequid 
 range. 
 
 Not only the Cornwallis Valley lies revealed 
 from this favoured spot, but wide reaches of 
 country are seen in all directions, the high- 
 lands across the Gaspereaux vying in loveliness 
 with the beautiful valley. 
 
 Meadow-land and orchard, barley and oat 
 fields, smile before the doors of Grand Pre 
 much as they did in the old times. Only then 
 there were wheat and flax fields ; and flocks of 
 sheep and herds of horses and cattle were also 
 far more numerous, if the stories of those old 
 times are true. To-day the people get their 
 
 59 
 
 
 (' 
 
 
 1. 1 
 
f -I 
 
 in I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 wheat and linen elsewhere, and the flocks and 
 herds for the most part find pasture in more 
 distant and less fertile places. 
 
 Many of the houses of Grand Pre are shin- 
 gled to the ground, and some are moss-grown 
 and gray as well, and the village has a certain 
 distinction from the tall columns of Lombardy 
 poplars that stand about. These poplars were 
 brought by the French from their home across 
 the sea; and wherever in Nova Scotia one sees 
 these tall straight trees, he may be sur*" that 
 they mark the site of what was once an Aca- 
 dian village. 
 
 At Grand Pre, too, are the Acadian willows, 
 not only picturesque in themselves, but wearing 
 an air of romance and poetry that enriches the 
 whole scene. It is hard to believe we live in 
 the things of to-day in the presence of the wil- 
 lows of Grand Pre. There are a few very eld 
 and very decrepit ones on the road leading 
 from the railway station toward the town. 
 They can be regarded with unstinted emotion 
 and unbridled imagination, for there can be no 
 doubt that they were really put there by French 
 hands as much as a hundred and fifty years ago, 
 and have witnessed the tragic scenes that make 
 
 60 
 
 M 
 
^ld 
 
 1^ 
 
 At the End of the Day 
 
 i 
 
 hi 
 

 .If !; 
 
(I 
 
 Grand Pre 
 
 / 
 
 the history of this part of the country so 
 memorable. 
 
 But it is in a meadow upon which the rail- 
 way station faces that the interest of to-day 
 chiefly centres. Across a wide field is to be 
 seen a row of willows, and near them is an old 
 French well, of course called Evangeline's well. 
 There is no question about the antiquity of the 
 well. It is as genuine as the willows, and if 
 the pilgrim wishes to touch its sacred water 
 with his finger-tips one does not see how harm 
 could follow. But the stranger who gazes into 
 the depths of the well will think twice before 
 he follows the advice of certain sentimental 
 guide-books and drinks from the sparkling 
 waters that once had kissed Evangeline's lovely 
 lips. 
 
 Either the water has changed since the well 
 was dug — at this period of time it may need 
 cleaning — or else it was used to water the 
 cattle. It is not a large well nor a deep one, 
 and the walls are of stone. When we saw it, 
 it had no cover, two or three boards being laid 
 crosswise to prevent the unwary from tumbling 
 in, or, it may be, to mark its site for the curious 
 and eager pilgrim. 
 
 6i 
 
 
 \ H 
 
 
ft 
 
 -V: 
 
 i, 
 
 «' ' 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Not far from the well are what are supposed 
 to be the foundations of buildings, one of which 
 is said to be the site of the very chapel in which 
 the Acadian men were imprisoned. 
 
 Not long since some blacksmith's tools were 
 dug up near here, which of course fired the 
 imaginations of all who heard of it, and it was 
 at once averred the site of the village smithy 
 had been discovered, doubtless the very spot 
 where Basil the blacksmith wrought. 
 
 Some one in Grand Pre, we were told, has a 
 collection of old French relics which he is will- 
 ing to show to any one interested. 
 
 The field in which lies the well is traversed 
 by foot-paths worn by the coming and going 
 of visitors. In some parts of the world this 
 field would be enclosed and an entrance fee 
 charged ; but so simple a means of amassing 
 wealth has not occurred to the " lazy " Corn- 
 wallis Valley farmer who owns it. He simply 
 works the land the sight-seer has not tramped 
 down too hard to be worked, and leaves 
 this field to the fate it has brought upon 
 itself. 
 
 There is another clump of very large wil- 
 lows in the well-meadow, near the fence by the 
 
 62 
 
rrm\ 
 
 Grand Pre 
 
 station. They are veterans indeed of the most 
 fantastic forms and positions, some of them 
 having literally lain down in order to endure 
 the ^ ress of years a little longer. 
 
 But the finest willows in Grand Pre border 
 an old roadway, which now runs through the 
 middle of a farm, and which is fenced in with 
 barbed wire. This roadway is near the field of 
 the well, and the owner of it cordially pointed it 
 out and invited us to walk through it, instruct- 
 ing us concerning a hole in the fence through 
 which we could enter without difficulty. 
 
 This way of the willows was charming. 
 They were mighty willows, hollow and twisted. 
 The limbs were as large as the trunks in some 
 cases, and they were pervaded with a flower- 
 like fragrance which we had never noticed in 
 willows before, unless perhaps in blooming- 
 time in the spring. This odour came from the 
 leaves, and we wondered if it might be the 
 exhalations of poetry. 
 
 The old roadway is broad and in some 
 places seems to have been elevated. There 
 are piles of stones near it which are doubtless 
 the remains of the foundations of old French 
 houses. There is a pervading sense of peace 
 
 63 
 
 ,?»: 
 

 'I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 about the quiet fields and these worn old 
 trees, which harmonises with our conceptions 
 of Acadian life. 
 
 From Grand Pre to Horton*s Landing is a 
 pleasant walk of about a mile, but pleasanter 
 than Horton's Landing itself is a grassy lane 
 near there, which ends at a stile upon which 
 one can sit and look at the broad marshes and 
 meadow-lands where the Gaspereaux winds 
 through red mud at low tide to empty into 
 the near waters of Minas, and at high tide is 
 lost in the sea that covers the sands. 
 
 The lowlands near the mouth of the Gas- 
 pereaux formed a combination of meadow and 
 marsh lands which we could not understand. 
 There were dikes, but they seemed incom- 
 plete and ineffectual, and later we learned 
 how a great storm had broken through and 
 let in the sea, and how these dikes, whose 
 cost of repair so close to turbulent Minas 
 had made them a questionable blessing, had 
 not been rebuilt. Remnants of them are 
 seen, but the triumphant tides have it all 
 their own way, and once more the yellow 
 marsh grass decorates the rich red soil. 
 
 Wherever accessible, the marsh grass is cut 
 
 64 
 
/ 
 
 Grand Pre 
 
 and preserved, and picturesque haycocks stand 
 on stilts over the marshes, but the value of 
 the salt hay is little compared to the opulence 
 of the meadow-land when protected from the 
 sting of the brine. 
 
 Situated as Grand Pre Is, on a ridge at the 
 extreme eastern edge of the Cornwallis Valley, 
 the views everywhere ibout are fine. 
 
 Wolfville, the kigest town of that region, 
 is only three miles away on the same ridge. 
 It is a college town, containing several institu- 
 tions for training the mental and spiritual 
 man and woman, being blessed as well with 
 a Young Ladies' Seminary. It Is rather an 
 attractive-looking place with Its many shade- 
 trees, and from It may be obtained a fine view 
 of the Cornwallis Valley. 
 
 Being plentifully supplied with boarding- 
 houses and accommodation of all sorts for 
 the summer tourist, it is the general stopping- 
 place, Grand Pre being a Mec:a to which the 
 tourists pour in crowds, to gaze, perchance 
 to worship, at Evangeline's shrine, to shed a 
 tear, and go their way. 
 
 The drive between Wolfville and Grand 
 Pre is beautiful enough to entice the pleasure- 
 
 65 
 
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 seeker, even if there were no such goal as 
 Grand Pre at the end. There are two roads 
 between Grand Pre and Wolfville, — one at 
 the foot of the ridge, and the other along its 
 crest. The drive over the upper road is one 
 to remember. 
 
 Up hill and down we went, past farm- 
 houses and through avenues of fragrant firs 
 and spruces, as wild a woods road as heart 
 could wish, and then of a sudden we found 
 ourselves looking down into the Valley of the 
 Gaspereaux. It is not a broad, calm expanse 
 like the Cornwallis Valley, but a sweet sun- 
 filled vale with the river sparkling and wind- 
 ing through the middle. 
 
 The Gaspereaux is not a mighty flood, and 
 it has no dignity to speak of. It babbles and 
 prattles over its stones like a summer brook, 
 is crossed here and there by a red-and-white 
 bridge ; and near its mouth it is disturbed and 
 discoloured by the intruding tides of Fundy, that 
 come prying as far as they can into the affairs 
 of the Gaspereaux, and cause dikes to be built 
 to shut their fatal salt embrace away from its 
 lower marshes. 
 
 Groups of willows are scattered through the 
 
 66 
 
a 
 
 Grand Pre 
 
 valley, and farms on gentle slopes lie basking 
 in the quiet sunshine. Apples are ripening 
 everywhere. All is bright, sweet, and peace- 
 ful, and we drive on with a feeling of calm 
 pleasure until the fairy valley is left behind, 
 and on the other side of us once more spread 
 the splendid reaches of the Cornwallis Valley. 
 
 Once more, and from another point of view, 
 we see our old friends. Canning and Kentville 
 and Kingsport, while close at hand lies Wolf- 
 ville. 
 
 We see again the far-off wall of North 
 Mountain standing sentinel over the fertile 
 valley, and holding back the fogs of Fundy, 
 that roll up from the Bay and look over the 
 mountain into the valley, but dare not venture 
 down to blight its vegetation with their cold 
 and damp presence. 
 
 Port Williams is a tiny settlement not far from 
 Wolfville, and we see it lying near the mouth 
 of the Cornwallis River, its wharves and vessels 
 telling of its maritime life, for up to its wharves 
 come schooners at flood-tide to bear away the 
 apples and potatoes of the region round about. 
 At low tide the schooners comport themselves 
 with what dignity they may with their keels in 
 
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 the mud and their high sides uncovered to the 
 gaze of the curious. 
 
 There are little groves of plum-trees all 
 about Wolfville and the surrounding country. 
 There are plums at Grand Pre and in the Gas- 
 pereaux Valley, but not so many as at Wolf- 
 ville. The orchards there were blue with 
 ripening fruit. The trees were bending and 
 almost breaking under the burden. Blue 
 plums were dominant, but there were also red 
 and white ones. 
 
 The farmhouses looked neat, and were often 
 picturesque or pretty, and everywhere were 
 orchards of ripening apples and little groves 
 of dark blue plums. 
 
 We missed the flowers that made Digby so 
 charming. Flowers were not abundant here, 
 and where they did occur they were meagre 
 and commonplace, and in no way characteristic 
 of Acadia. 
 
 To Digby belong her fish-flakes and her 
 flowers ; Acadia has her dike-lands, her 
 orchards, and her romance. 
 
 i 1 
 
 68 
 
VI 
 
 nl 
 
 EVANGELINE 
 
 THERE are two villages of Grand 
 Pre. One lies on the slopes beyond 
 the Cornwallis with the broad valley 
 smiling before her doors. The other 
 was founded by Longfellow and lies in the 
 hearts of his readers and within the glowing 
 lines of poetry, enveloped by the mists of 
 romance. 
 
 It is difficult to separate the two ; and the 
 Grand Pre of reality is pervaded by a charm 
 not her own from association with the Grand 
 Pre of the poet. Lying on the hill-top above 
 Grand Pre and looking over the peaceful 
 meadow-lands on a summer day, we cease to 
 behold the present scene, and the poet's fancy 
 rises to take its place. 
 
 We read the page before us, and the forest 
 primeval occupies the neighbouring hills in 
 spite of the fact that not a forest tree is now on 
 them • and we listen gratefully to the murmur- 
 ing pines and the hemlocks, although there are 
 not enough pine-trees in all Nova Scotia to 
 
 69 
 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 murmur effectively, and it is a question as to 
 whether they ever flourished near Grand Pre. 
 Still, in our imagination they are there, and 
 we shall no doubt learn that the image we have 
 so long held of them is far more enduring than 
 are our memories of Grand Pre as we saw it in 
 reality. 
 
 As we read on out of the poet's book we live 
 in a strange dream-world, where ever and anon 
 the modern English houses are blotted out and 
 along the single street of Grand Pre straggle 
 the poet's houses with their overhanging 
 thatched roofs, their dormer windows, and their 
 quaint doorways. 
 
 In spite of the stones lying prone in the 
 meadow by the well, we see the chapel with its 
 uplifted cross, not on the lowlands, but on the 
 side of the ridge, where in our imagination the 
 quaint and comfortable houses stand. We know 
 exactly what mound it occupied and how the 
 houses were grouped about it. In spite of the 
 coffins recently exhumed from th6 meadow 
 below, we know the burying-ground of our 
 Grand Pre lies by the wall of our chapel. 
 
 The broad-eaved barns, low-thatched and 
 bursting with the harvest, cluster like separate 
 
 70 
 
Evangeline 
 
 id 
 
 te 
 
 villages each about its farmhouse, as the poet 
 has shown them to us. 
 
 Down toward Horton's Landing — apart, as 
 the poet has set it, and as it should be — is the 
 peaceful and charming home of Evangeline. 
 There in the broad-beamed house she lives 
 with her father. We see her as distinctly as 
 we see the young girl of to-day passing along 
 the street, far more distinctly, for we shall for- 
 get the young girl, but Evangeline's face and 
 form will linger in our minds for ever. 
 
 We know her as well as we know the 
 members of our household, and here in Grand 
 Pre she seems very near to us. V/e know she 
 is sitting at her spinning-wheel down there by 
 Horton's Landing, in the home of her father 
 with its oaken beams. She is fair, and bright 
 with the sparkle of French vivacity that plays 
 in her black eyes, which flash and soften with 
 succeeding emotions. 
 
 She is clad in the picturesque attire of her 
 country people ; and in the corner near her is 
 the great loom where she sits through the 
 winter, weaving cloth for the family and laying 
 up piles of linen against a day that is nearing, 
 and about which she is dreaming. 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 We too dream as we read. We see her not 
 only in her home but abroad on Sunday, wend- 
 ing her way to the chapel, clad in her blue 
 kirtle and wearing her Norman cap and ances- 
 tral ornaments. We see her townspeople in 
 bright colours about her, but she is not of them ; 
 she stands alone, something rare in this world, 
 precious to us in a deep and primal sense. 
 
 Whether the poet meant it or not, in 
 Evangeline he has given us not an individual, 
 but a type. She does not belong to any time 
 or to any place; she is the great, patient, suffer- 
 ing type of womanhood which shall outlive 
 nations and races. We follow her with rever- 
 ence, not because she is a village maiden, fair 
 and gentle, but because of her awful mission, 
 because of her triumph over circumstance and 
 failure, and because in Evangeline's hand-to- 
 hand struggle with the adverse forces of this 
 world, we each discern our own battle. 
 
 We linger in imagination with Evangeline 
 in her youth. We lovingly watch her as she 
 moves about and is greeted by the villagers 
 with the same reverence we ourselves feel for 
 her. They do not know why they feel thus 
 to this young girl ; but we know, for they too 
 
 72 
 
^\ 1 
 
 Evangeline 
 
 are the creatures of our imagination, and over 
 them all we have cast the spell of Evangeline's 
 future. They too go forth and suffer, but we 
 do not think of that ; we follow only the figure 
 the poet has shown us and the one life he 
 has illumined. 
 
 We see Gabriel, Evangeline's lover, but he 
 is less well defined. Perhaps more clearly 
 stands out Gabriel's father, Basil the black- 
 smith, and Evangeline's own sunny-hearted 
 and well-loved sire. These people are all, to 
 our imagination, of superior clay; they are the 
 well beloved of the poet, they and all their 
 neighbours. 
 
 It is from the first pages of Longfellow's 
 " Evangeline" we get that sense of peace and 
 blessedness which has confused Acadia with 
 Arcadia in the minds of so many. 
 
 From our place on the hillside, the magic 
 book in our hand, we watch the peaceful days 
 glide by, we see the coming home of the herds 
 at night, and listen to the love-song of Evan- 
 geline as she awaits the coming of her lover 
 Gabriel. We witness the betrothal and attend 
 the feast, and listen lightly to the ominous 
 rumours of hostile import. 
 
 73 
 
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 We know what is to come., yet the poet's 
 magic chains us to the joyful present. We 
 think only of Evangeline and Gabriel, — she 
 filled with deep and holy joy at the approach- 
 ing perfection of her womanhood, and he filled 
 with love and ambition for her. We know 
 their hopes will never be realised, yet we re- 
 joice as they do, as though we were, like them, 
 oblivious of the future. 
 
 While we are still lying on our hillside, a 
 change comes over the face of Grand Pre. It 
 is the fall of the year, and the deep peace of the 
 happy valley is broken by the noise of drums 
 and the wailing of women and children. 
 Evangeline's father, Basil the blacksmith, 
 Gabriel, and all the men of the village are 
 imprisoned in the chapel, where they had been 
 summoned to hear the will of their masters ; 
 and the fiat has gone forth that the French 
 Acadians shall be driven away as exiles, their 
 homes and their property confiscated to the 
 English Crown. 
 
 There is something so cruelly inhuman in 
 this decree and in the scenes that follow, as 
 the poet has portrayed them, that we forget the 
 facts of history and are carried away by the 
 
 74 
 
 It' n 
 
Evangeline 
 
 same rushing tide of feeling that overwhelmed 
 the victims. Our indignation blazes with theirs 
 and our tears flow with them, as we go from 
 house to house and see the misery that has in 
 a moment overtaken our Acadia, our Isles of 
 the Blessed. 
 
 We execrate the terrible decree in spite of 
 the excuses history presents, for here we are 
 not in the realm of history. We are in the 
 poet's land of Acadia, and these cherished peo- 
 ple are being wantonly scattered and destroyed, 
 driven forth without cause and without right of 
 appeal. 
 
 Over there, where we can see the shining 
 mouth of the Gaspereaux, the English ships 
 are waiting. Cruel hands guard the men in 
 the chapel while the women bear their house- 
 hold goods to the shore. 
 
 And now Evangeline begins the fulfilment 
 of that sacred promise of her future. She does 
 not wait to weep, nor does she fall in despair. 
 Over her seventeen summers of gracious youth 
 is suddenly dropped the mantle of life's tragedy, 
 which she never more will cast aside. 
 
 The past held a delusion, although she does 
 not know it yet ; her womanhood must be per- 
 
 75 
 
 iSM**"*'' ^'' 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 fected, not through the fulfilment of her dearest 
 hope, but through abnegation of all she most 
 desires ; and she applies herself to the care 
 of her neighbours, comforting and helping 
 them, and thus in a measure stilling her own 
 pain. 
 
 The tragedy of Grand Pre hastens to a con- 
 clusion. The prisoners are marched under 
 guard to the ships. We see the long line of 
 them, the young men first, their faces set and 
 grim, and their powerful muscles strained but 
 helpless to serve them against the oppressor. 
 
 For a moment Evangeline flashes before our 
 eyes ; she is in the arms of Gabriel. Our hearts 
 are oppressed with the doom which we know has 
 fallen, but herS;, in spite of the horrible situation, 
 is sustained by the hope of sharing her exile with 
 her beloved. 
 
 She cannot remain with him now, for later in 
 the procession is a bent old form, her once 
 joyous-hearted father, whom she now scarcely 
 recognises, so frightfully have the hours of 
 misery told upon him, and to whose side she 
 hastens. 
 
 Again we see her, momentarily overcome by 
 the death of her father, who, broken-hearted, 
 
 76 
 
 lii! 
 
Evangeline 
 
 is laid to rest on the shore of Minas by the 
 loving hands of the stricken neighbours. 
 
 Night falls, and we watch the people by their 
 fires on the shore ; it is their last night, and 
 they sit in dumb misery. In a moment a thrill 
 of anguish and horror passes over our own 
 nerves as it did over theirs, for along the strag- 
 gling street of Grand Pre an ominous light 
 shines. 
 
 The cruel flame-storm spreads and rages, its 
 passion fed by the thatched roofs of the Aca- 
 dian homes. This is the last drop, and the 
 voices of the people are raised in shrieks and 
 groans of utter despair. 
 
 Again we see Evangeline, no longer a care- 
 free girl but a full-dowered woman, accepting 
 her womanhood and perfecting it in the fire of 
 her great affliction. It is her voice that com- 
 forts and her hand that sustains, and young and 
 old turn to her in appealing reverence, knowing 
 now the cause of their joy in her. 
 
 In that miserable camp on the shore stands 
 not Evangeline, but Womanhood. 
 
 Lying on the sunny bank, we watch those 
 ships of the land of romance sail away from the 
 mouth of the Gaspereaux. We scarce see the 
 
 77 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 silver river more plainly than the imagined 
 ships, and crowded on their insufficient decks 
 are the once happy Acadians. 
 
 Evangeline is there, alone in the world. 
 Her father lies by the sea, her lover is on 
 another ship, for in the confusion of embark- 
 ing, the cruel haste and the urging, they were 
 separated. 
 
 We watch the ships sail down Minas Basin 
 toward Blomidon. We watch them disappear 
 around the bold front of the rocky bluff; and 
 we know that Evangeline's and Gabriel's ships 
 took different courses, and that these two wan- 
 dered over the earth the rest of their lives 
 in search of each other, not despairing and not 
 staying the hand because the heart ached. 
 They laboured for others while struggling ever 
 onward toward the goal they both sought. 
 
 We put down the oft-read poem with dim 
 eyes. Our hearts go out, not to Evangeline, 
 but to the whole world of suffering humanity, 
 whose representative she is. Longfellow seized 
 upon an event in history but to give living 
 form to a universal truth. 
 
 We know the Grand Pre before us is not 
 the imagined scene of his beautiful poem, yet 
 
 78 
 
Evangeline 
 
 we cannot see the old willows and the straight 
 poplars planted by the hands of the early- 
 French settlers without emotion. 
 
 We cannot gaze upon the broad meadows 
 before the door of Grand Pre without remem- 
 bering the hands that first held back the sea. 
 Nor would we if we could. 
 
 Suppose the real Acadians were not the folk 
 of the poet's fancy ; suppose the emotion 
 expended upon their sad history does not 
 wholly belong to them, — still, even had it been 
 deserved, their fate was terrible, and their suf- 
 ferings were such as will ever appeal to the 
 heart of humanity. 
 
 Their history was at least the rough material 
 out of which a divine form was fashioned by 
 the poet. 
 
 79 
 
k 
 
 .i 
 
 VII 
 THE ACADIANS 
 
 IF we have listened with exaltation to the 
 Muse of Poetry, let us now turn to a 
 graver Muse, that of History, and hear 
 what she has to tell us of the Acadians 
 and their exile. 
 
 There must be in history excuse for the 
 atrocities represented in the story of the poet. 
 In order to understand events, it is necessary 
 first to make allowance for the theory, now, 
 perhaps, beginning to be disbelieved, that a 
 king or a government can own and control 
 distant lands never seen or in any way im- 
 proved by them ; and that those who till the 
 soil of these lands and who make their homes 
 in them are the creatures of these distant 
 powers. 
 
 The story, briefly told, is this. After the 
 great continent of North America was discov- 
 ered, it was, as all know, eagerly settled by 
 colonies from France and England. 
 
 Instead of allowing the new world to belong 
 to those who settled it, its resources to be by 
 
 80 
 
 'i,.-, I 
 
 h^'ii 
 
The Acadians 
 
 them developed and controlled, and the new 
 society governed by its members, France and 
 England both assumed to be the owners, and 
 each tried to drive the other away and gain the 
 sole control. The consequence was innumer- 
 able difficulties and much bloodshed. 
 
 Acadia, being one of the principal doors to 
 the new world, was a favourite bone of conten- 
 tion, unfortunately for the poor creatures who 
 had settled there. 
 
 In 17 13 the treaty of Utrecht was signed 
 between France and England, and among other 
 provisions Acadia was ceded to Great Britain. 
 Acadia then meant not only Nova Scotia 
 and New Brunswick, but also some adjacent 
 country, and did not include Cape Breton and 
 Prince Edward Island, which France looked 
 upon as her own. 
 
 In the treaty of Utrecht it was agreed that 
 the French settlers in Acadia should be allowed 
 to remain on their lands if they chose, and 
 should be free to practise the Roman Catholic 
 faith. If they preferred to move, they were to 
 be allowed to do so any time within a ysar. 
 
 Few moved, and at the end of the year those 
 remaining were requested to take the oath of 
 6 81 
 
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 Down North and Up ^ long 
 
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 allegiance to King George. At once there was 
 trouble, for the Acadians, although they had 
 been transferred to English jurisdiction by the 
 great treaty of Utrecht, had not thereby been 
 changed from Frenchmen into Englishmen ; 
 that was something the treaty was not able to 
 accomplish, and they declined to take the oath 
 of allegiance to England. 
 
 The French had built a strong fort at Louis- 
 burg, on the eastern coast of Cape Breton, and 
 were not at all unwilling that the Acadians 
 should rebel against English authority — quite 
 the contrary. Having given up Acadia, there 
 was nothing, we may well suDpose, they so much 
 wanted as to get it back again, and that the 
 Acadians should help them to do this. 
 
 We have seen the Acadians in the trans- 
 forming light of poetry, and they were a very 
 agreeable people ; now we must lock upon them 
 in the prosaic light of history, which does not 
 soften the angles or enrich the colours ; if any- 
 thing, it intensifies the external hardness of 
 appearances. 
 
 Parkman, in the first volume of his " Mont- 
 calm and Wolfe," gives us this picture of 
 them : — 
 
 82 
 
'The Acadians 
 
 " They were a simple and very ignorant peasantry, 
 industrious and frugal till evil days came to discourage 
 them ; living aloof from the world with little of that 
 spirit of adventure which an easy access to the vast 
 fur-bearing interior had developed in their Canadian 
 kindred ; having few wants and those of the rudest ; 
 fishing a little, and hunting in winter, but chiefly 
 employed in cultivating the meadows along the river 
 Annapolis, or rich marshes reclaimed by dikes from 
 the tides of the Bay of Fundy. The British Govern- 
 ment left them entirely free of taxation. They made 
 clothing of flax and wool of their own raising, hats 
 of similar materials, and shoes or moccasins of moose 
 and seal skin. They had cattle, sheep, hogs, and 
 horses in abundance, and the Valley of the Annapolis, 
 then as now, was known for the profusion and excel- 
 lence of its apples. 
 
 " For drink they had cider or brewed spruce-beer. 
 " French officials describe their dwellings as wretched 
 wooden boxes, without ornaments or conveniences, 
 and scarcely supplied with the most necessary furni- 
 ture. Two or more families often occupied the same 
 house ; and their way of life, though simple and vir- 
 tuous, was by no means remarkable for cleanliness. 
 Such as it was, contentment reigned among them, 
 undisturbed by what modern America calls progress. 
 
 " Marriages were early, and population grew 
 apace." 
 
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 83 
 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 Here we have a new and very different pic- 
 ture of our Grand Pre. It is difficult indeed 
 to transfer the people described by Parkman 
 to the scene we look upon from our hillside 
 and which has so recently been the theatre of 
 Evangeline's drama. Yet let us once n*ore 
 dream a dream. Along the one street of 
 Grand Pre straggle the homes of the French 
 peasantry. They are rude wooden structures, 
 picturesque enough, no doubt, with their heavy 
 thatched roofs, but devoid of the refinements 
 of life and not over-clean. 
 
 It is a community of ignorant peasants, un- 
 able even to write their names, we are told 
 elsewhere. Brought as emigrants from the 
 mother-country, they have settled here and 
 industriously worked the soil and reclaimed 
 part of the marsh that still spreads before 
 their doors. 
 
 Being ignorant and Industrious, these people 
 had neither ability nor time to make a study 
 of the art of diplomacy ; being superstitious, 
 they fell an easy prey to those who were 
 skilled in that noble art. They loved their 
 homes and were content, and very likely, had 
 they been left to themselves, would not have 
 
 84 
 
 k 
 
The Acadians 
 
 known whether England or France owned 
 Acadia, or might even have supposed they 
 owned it themselves. 
 
 Not being left to themselves, however, they 
 were instructed on the one hand to take the 
 oath of allegiance to England, which in all 
 probability they would have done quite will- 
 ingly, only that, on the other hand, their 
 priests told them not to. Very naturally, they 
 obeyed their priests. What was the command 
 of a distant and unseen power to them, com- 
 pared to the actual words and personal pres- 
 ence of their spiritual advisers ? 
 
 Their spiritual advisers should have known 
 better than to involve this innocent and igno- 
 rant peasantry in so absurdly unequal a con- 
 test as a war with the English Government. 
 But pawns were needed in the great Game 
 of Governments, and the Acadians made very 
 good ones. 
 
 The chief figure of these unfortunate times 
 is the unenviable one of Louis Joseph Le 
 Loutre, vicar-general of Acadia and mission- 
 ary to the Micmac Indians. He flourished in 
 the middle of the eighteenth century and was 
 to an extent the cause of the expulsion of the 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Acadians. Taking advantage of the ignorance 
 and superstition of the people, we are told he 
 taught them that allegiance to Louis of France 
 was inseparable from fidelity to God, and that 
 to swear allegiance to the Crown of England 
 was to bring them eternal damnation. 
 
 The word of the priest was the only law to 
 the simple peasantry, and they refused the 
 oath. When they did take it, they were in- 
 structed that it was no sin to break it. 
 
 The treaty of Utrecht was signed in 17 13, 
 and the expulsion of the Acadians did not 
 take place until 1755, so for nearly half a 
 century England bore with what she looked 
 upon as treasonable conduct with a forbear- 
 ance unparalleled in history. 
 
 During this long period of time, this forty- 
 two years, the Acadians, notwithstanding their 
 unfriendly behaviour, were not taxed, they were 
 allowed the practice of their own religion and 
 the ministration of their own priests. 
 
 We are informed that from the beginning 
 the priests were the secret enemies of England, 
 and when Le Loutre's power began the Aca- 
 dians were incited to every sort of violence. 
 
 They were not asked by England to take 
 
 86 
 
 li 
 
T'he Acadi ans 
 
 up arms against their countrymen nor against 
 the Indians, who were the friends of the 
 French, but they were enjoined to remain 
 neutral. They persisted in refusing to take 
 the oath of allegiance excepting with such 
 modifications as made it meaningless. More 
 than this, in time of war they withheld sup- 
 plies from the English, refusing to sell except 
 at exorbitant prices, and secretly sent their 
 stores to their own countrymen. 
 
 Le Loutre, when he came upon the scene, 
 stirred up the Micmacs to constant raids upon 
 the English, whom they mercilessly killed; 
 and the more reckless among the Acadians, 
 disguising themselves as Indians, are said to 
 have joined the raiders. 
 
 Within what she considered her own terri- 
 tory, England was nourishing an enemy that 
 threatened at any favourable moment to de- 
 stroy her. 
 
 This state of affairs could not go on for ever. 
 Matters were nearing a climax ; New England 
 demanded the suppression of the Acadians, 
 declaring her o'vn safety depended upon it; 
 and England would not turn a deaf ear to 
 New England's cries, though there are those 
 
 87 
 
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 who claim that her forbearance with the Aca- 
 dians was not wholly philanthropic. Her 
 American child was none too submissive ; 
 and she may well have feared that if the dis- 
 tractions of war were removed, the too-fast- 
 growing infant might undertake to break away 
 from its mother's apron-strings. 
 
 So it is a New England man whom we see 
 coming to execute sentence upon the Aca- 
 dians. The weighers of events tell us that mat- 
 ters grew worse and v/orse, that the Acadians 
 became more and more insolent and insubor- 
 dinate under the guidance of their priests and 
 actuated by belief in the final triumph of the 
 French. 
 
 Finally the Acadians were sternly com- 
 manded to take the oath of allegiance without 
 alteration, as other British subjects took it, and 
 they refused. They were given time to con- 
 sider, but the power to consider did not lie 
 with them. Le Loutre considered for them, 
 and threatened to turn his Indians upon them 
 if they complied. They knew this would be 
 no vain threat, for his cruel hand had already 
 been felt in different parts of the country. 
 
 Moreover, to comply was to lose their souls. 
 
 88 
 
< 
 
 X 
 
 
 ■ai 
 < 
 
 
 i 
 
 Tl 
 
 'J 
 i 
 
 i. 
 
 J 
 
The jicadians 
 
 So they refused, trusting, no doubt, to Eng- 
 land's past clemency to overlook their conduct 
 once more. 
 
 But this was not to be. Hard pressed by 
 the French in different directions and doubt- 
 less fearful of losing Acadia, — and all that 
 that implied, — England determined finally to 
 rid herself very effectually of the troublesome 
 peasants. 
 
 It was John Winslow, a descendant of the 
 early governors of Plymouth Colony, who 
 sailed from Boston one day with a shipful of 
 New England volunteers to undertake the 
 reduction of the unruly Acadians. The Aca- 
 dians themselves had no suspicion of what was 
 pending. They were the victims alike of 
 friend and foe, for two thousand of them had 
 already been cajoled or driven from their homes 
 across the frontier to Ficnch lands, and this 
 had not been done by the English, but by 
 their own countrymen, the French, who wanted 
 their services. Thus removed from their Aca- 
 dian homes, all domestic ties broken, they were 
 far more willing openly to fight the English. 
 
 Winslow helped to reduce the French fort 
 at the head of the Cumberland Basin, which 
 
 » 
 
 ',S 'I 
 
 IV: 
 
 M 
 
SHHHH 
 
 ' 
 
 H ' » 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 commanded the entrance by land into the 
 Peninsula of Nova Scotia, and was then com- 
 missioned to remove those Acadians whose 
 headquarters were at Grand Pre. Other offi- 
 cers were sent to perform a similar duty in other 
 Acadian centres, but it is of Grand Pre, where 
 the plan was most fully carried out, that we 
 always hear. It is believed that three thou- 
 sand or more French settlers were removed 
 from Acadia, and that over two thousand were 
 taken from Grand Pre and vicinity. 
 
 It was a thankless task to Winslow, and to 
 his credit be it said he did it reluctantly and as 
 humanely as possible. It was decided that 
 the people could not be turned adrift on the 
 borders of Acadia to join the enemy, who would 
 be only too glad to receive and make use of 
 them, and so they were put on board ships and 
 sent away, scattered all along the English colo- 
 nies on the Atlantic coast, some of them even 
 finding their way to Louisiana, where their 
 descendants may be found to-day, in better 
 condition if report be true, than were their 
 ancestors in the apple lands of Acadia. 
 
 The same military reason which caused their 
 dispersal over distant shores also caused their 
 
 90 
 
 
 II 
 
The Acadia?is 
 
 homes to be burned, so that the stragglers, for 
 many escaped, might not return. 
 
 Pains were taken, the historian is careful to 
 say, not to separate families or neighbours, and 
 few such events are believed to have occurred. 
 Yet, whatever precautions were taken, the exile 
 was pitiful enough, and even the grave histo- 
 rian cannot refrain from expressing the universal 
 sentiment as he nears the tragic moment. He 
 tells us how Winslow sailed down Chignecto 
 Channel to the Bay of Fundy. 
 
 " Borne on the rushing flood, they soon drifted 
 through the inlet, glided under the rival promontory 
 of Cape Blomidon, passed the red sandstone cliffs of 
 Lyon's Cove, and descried the mouth of the rivers 
 Canard and Des Habitants, where fertile marshes, 
 diked against the tide, sustained a numerous and 
 thriving population. Before them spread the bound- 
 less meadows of Grand Pre, waving with harvests or 
 alive with grazing catde ; 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 tc the 
 
 91 
 
 
 
 h\ 
 
 
 1; 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
^ 
 
 a \ 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 estuary of the river Pisicjuid, 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 the shore, while 
 the sloops that had brought them slept on the soft 
 bed of tawny mud left by the fallen tide." 
 
 Soon after this Winslow and his men landed 
 at Grand Pre and were stationed In the village 
 church, from which the historian Is careful to 
 Inform us, he had the elders remove the sacred 
 things, to prevent their being defiled by 
 heretics. 
 
 Winslow, using the church as a storehouse 
 and place of arms, took his own station In the 
 priests* house until all should be ready. The 
 people did not know why he was there, though 
 his presence could not have been reassuring. 
 
 On Friday, the fifth of September, 1755, at 
 three o'clock In the afternoon, the little church, 
 in obedience to orders, was filled with the men 
 and boys of Grand Pre, — an expectant and 
 anxious throng waiting to hear the will of their 
 superiors. 
 
 The decree was read ; the blow had fallen. 
 
 92 
 
 f 1 
 
The Acadians 
 
 by 
 
 Once again we see the crowd assembled on 
 the shore. The men are shut in the church ; 
 the women carry the household goods to the 
 ships. It is not the assembly we saw a while 
 ago, however, in poetry and imagination, but a 
 crowd of poor hunted peasants, the victims of 
 their own ignorance and the playthings of greed 
 and cruelty. Their own people have betrayed 
 them, and the foreign nation which has so long 
 tolerated them on the lands they themselves 
 have snatched from the sea and cultivated now 
 casts them forth. 
 
 The flames leap up from the miserable 
 thatched hovels they call their homes, and the 
 cry of despair breaks forth, for, poor though 
 they are, those hovels are their homes ; they 
 love them and they love the fields they have 
 tilled. They are cast miserably forth, outcasts 
 indeed, and no matter how poor in intellect or 
 in spirit they may have been, their cry resounds 
 through time. It is their great sorrow, their 
 tragic fate, which appeals to every heart and 
 makes the expulsion of the Acadians as it really 
 occurred but a shade less pathetic than the 
 tragedy the poet recited. 
 
 v-f:, 
 
 
 
 93 
 

 
 VIII 
 BLOMIDON 
 
 KINGSPORT lies on the edge of a 
 bluff below which the mighty tides 
 surge in and out. It is a little 
 wind-blown village unadorned by 
 fish-flakes, for fishing is not carried on in 
 Minas Basin. Its wharf is less imposing than 
 that at Digby, though the tides here rise to a 
 height of over fifty feet ; but the shore is 
 shelving, and when the tide is out the red 
 sands are bare about the wharf, and the vessels 
 lie aground. 
 
 The Annapolis Basin is a serene expanse of 
 water where one, as it were, feels the lift of the 
 tides, while Minas Basin is a maelstrom where 
 one feels their rush. 
 
 Once Kingsport carried on an important 
 ship-building industry, but her ship-yards are 
 now no more. From her pier, however, ves- 
 sels sail for London bearing the apples and 
 potatoes of the interior. 
 
 From Kingsport one gets a clear view of the 
 peculiar outline of Blomidon. A vertical wall 
 
 94 
 
 t 
 
 - i% 
 
Bio mi don 
 
 of dark gray basaltic trap drops some two or 
 three hundred feet from the top, from which 
 the fir-trees look over. Below the trap is a 
 wide sloping terrace of lighter gray amygdaloid, 
 and below that the steep slope to the sea is 
 of dark red sandstone, the same sandstone of 
 which the cliffs along the shore are formed, 
 and of which the rich red mud that makes 
 the Cornwallis dike-lands so famous is largely 
 composed. 
 
 Blomidon's stern aspect is chiefly due to the 
 vertical wall of rock that caps it, and the impres- 
 sion it creates is not lessened when one thinks of 
 the stupendous catastrophe that placed it there. 
 
 The North Mountain ridge extends from 
 Blomidon to Digby Gut, and from Digby Gut 
 southward to Brier Island, where it ends. The 
 underlying sandstone of the ridge was no doubt 
 formed by the action of water at the level of 
 the sea, and was at a later period elevated. 
 But the bed of trap that covers the sandstone 
 the whole length of the ridge was once a vast 
 river of molten rock, poured out from some 
 great volcanic crater, — or more probably series 
 of craters. 
 
 Just where these outlets were, no one knows; 
 
 95 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 i:;, I 
 
 \ i 
 
 I 
 
 
tWHIH 
 
 mmm 
 
 J . 
 
 :'i|;(l 
 
 tl 
 
 I 
 
 li 
 
 
 Down North aitd Up Along 
 
 but somewhere along the extent of North 
 Mountain the great mouths yawned, to be 
 finally choked full and concealed by succeed- 
 ing geological phenomena. 
 
 Then came the Ice Age, when Nova Scotia 
 with her mountains was buried deep under a 
 frozen mantle, and when the irresistible, slow- 
 moving glaciers emulated the power of fire and 
 tore away the softer rock, scooping out the 
 Cornwallis and Annapolis valleys, and carrying 
 boulders and pebbles of trap across from 
 North Mountain, to deposit them at the foot 
 of South Mountain's slaty mass. 
 
 Thus fire and ice have wrought in ages past 
 with tremendous power; but a gentler and 
 equally potent spirit has been at work for cen- 
 turies, filling the heart of the mountain with 
 exquisite crystals. 
 
 When the volcanic fires first burst forth, 
 they scattered cinders and particles of old lava, 
 which formed a deep layer of more porous 
 material, before the final pouring forth of the 
 main stream of molten rock. This layer is 
 the amygdaloid belt, which, being cf lighter 
 colour, one can plainly see crossing Blomidon's 
 great front. 
 
 \ ■■ 
 
 \\ . i 
 
Bio mi don 
 
 As time passed and the trap above assumed 
 its present hard state, the porous belt below 
 was permeated by the rain-water that insinuated 
 itself into all the crevices, slowly, as the centu- 
 ries passed, dissolving the silica and its com- 
 pounds from the rock traversed, and depositing 
 them in the cavities of the amygdaloid layer. 
 Here these materials arranged themselves into 
 crystals, those mysterious and lovely blossoms 
 in the hearts of rocks, and filled the hollows, 
 large and small, with the most delicate and 
 exquisitely beautiful forms. 
 
 North Mountain is an exhaustless treasure- 
 house, before whose marvels even Sindbad's 
 wondrous cave grows poor. Within it exquis- 
 itely beautiful forms lie waiting to flash or glow 
 whenever the rays of the sun shall penetrate the 
 blackness of their prison cells. Here lie blue 
 amethysts, agates of winsome colours, and dark 
 red jasper, besides many another gem of lovely 
 hue. Nor are these treasures held fast in the 
 heart of the mountain inaccessible to man. 
 
 In some places the hard trap has overflowed 
 
 the whole side of the mountain and piled up in 
 
 a solid mass, in others it is less impregnable. 
 
 Often where the cliff rises sheer, as at Blomi- 
 
 7 97 
 
 'I 
 
 I,' 
 
 l! 
 
 '•'I I 
 
 :■■) 
 
 ,1 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 I. 
 

 »; ^i 
 
 M ^i 
 
 H ^ 
 
 'it- I' 
 
 i MJ 
 
 •'S-* 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 don and at points along North Mountain 
 facing the Bay of Fundy, the tricksy frost 
 gnomes have been at work loosening and split- 
 ting away fragments of rock and even separat- 
 ing large masses which the rain washes down 
 the mountain side, or which fall in the form of 
 land-slides, sometimes of considerable extent. 
 
 These displaced masses are chiefly composed 
 of the more friable amygdaloid. Down comes 
 the shattered cliflf, in its fall exposing its cav- 
 erns of flashing crystals, while geodes and 
 nodules of various sizes roll over the sands at 
 the foot of the mountain, all to be finally 
 washed away by the hungry tides, and those 
 of Blomidon ground against the hard rock that 
 forms the bottom of the sea basin, until in 
 course of time the lovely crystals no doubt 
 help to form the mud that makes the dike- 
 lands fertile, and the Cornwallis farmers raise 
 their hay and oats from jewels. 
 
 But not all of Blomidon's jewels meet this 
 fate. At low tide the sands at the foot of the 
 headland are bare, and then come the treasure- 
 hunters from Kingsport and Canning and all 
 the neighbouring towns, and eagerly employ 
 the time the tide allows them in gathering what 
 
 98 
 
 f / ? : 
 
 Ik:^ 
 
Blomidon 
 
 their hands can find ; very beautiful as well as 
 rare crystals often reward their search. 
 
 There is one place particularly rich in the 
 mineral deposits that fall from above, and its 
 name, Amethyst Cove, sufficiently explains 
 what is most eagerly sought for there. The 
 best time to hunt for Blomidon's treasures is 
 in the early summer, after the frosts of winter 
 and the rains of spring have loosened and 
 washed down the rocks above, and before the 
 summer tourist has appeared in force to deplete 
 the store, although at any time of year when 
 the beach is accessible the seeker need not go 
 away empty-handed. 
 
 Perhaps no part of Blomidon's treasures has 
 so great a fascination as the geodes. What 
 fresher delight is given to mortals than to break 
 a geode, a rough rounded stone, often with no 
 beauty of form or colour, and discover within 
 a central cavity lined with glowing crystals or 
 entirely filled with clustering jewels ! 
 
 No wonder Blomidon is said to have been 
 the abode of Glooscap, the Hiawatha of the 
 Micmac Indians, whose wigwams once stood on 
 these shores and who peopled forest and head- 
 land with supcnatural beings of their own 
 
 99 
 
 if 
 
 i 
 
 '$ 
 
 IH 
 
r ' ','. 
 
 ■I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 creation, chief among whom was the mighty 
 Glooscap, friend of man. 
 
 There is a legend telHng of a mystic stone 
 which at night is sometimes seen blazing on 
 the brow of the mountain. This is the " eye 
 of Glooscap " or the " diamond of Cape 
 Blomidon." 
 
 Although Blomidon is willing that mortals 
 should see this jewel of" miraculous radiance " 
 and even allow its whereabouts to be discovered 
 at times, woe to the unlucky finder who should 
 presume to remove it. Terrible misfortune 
 would be his portion, and in the end the gem, 
 by its own miraculous powers, would find its 
 way back to Blomidon's brow. 
 
 There is another story to the effect that 
 among the crown jewels of France has blazed 
 for over a century a great amethyst from the 
 treasure-house of Blomidon ; and it has been 
 suggested that the unstable fortunes of France 
 may be due to her possession of this very 
 eye of Glooscap. Certain it is this token 
 has not of late been observed on Blomidon's 
 front. 
 
 Although one can see Blomidon clearly out- 
 lined from Kingsport one must get close to 
 
 100 
 
 
Blomidon 
 
 examine it, and this can be done at any time 
 by crossing the Bay to Parrsboro. The boat 
 from Kingsport to Parrsboro leaves and lands 
 by the grace of Neptune. It alternately lies 
 Oil the sand some thirty feet or more below the 
 top (jf the pier, and rides triumphantly with 
 its djclc on a level with that structure. 
 
 One fair afternoon we sat aloft and waited 
 for the boat to ascend to us. 
 
 The captain cheerily announced that we 
 could get aboard in a few minutes. It certainly 
 did not look so as we gazed down upon the far 
 away " Evangeline," but the captain's faith in 
 Fundy was not unrequited, and soon the smoke- 
 stack began to appear above the edge of the 
 wharf. 
 
 Soon after we were able to reach the top of 
 the cabin which formed the " Evangeline's " 
 only deck. Our descent was certainly a little 
 steep, but not so much so as that of a four- 
 footed fellow-passenger. 
 
 A derrick stood on the " Evangeline's " bow 
 and was used in lowering baggage and other 
 bulky articles when the captain wanted to get 
 under way before the full of the tide. 
 
 This day a man wished to cross with his 
 
 lOI 
 
 ^1 
 
 IH ' 
 
 
 \\ 
 
 y 
 
 {■ 
 
 m 
 
 
I< . I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 horse, — an undertaking in which the horse did 
 not appear to sympathise. 
 
 A narrow bridge with a railing on either side 
 was run out from the pier, one end resting on 
 the pier itself, the other suspended in mid-air 
 by ropes attached to th'i useful derrick. Upon 
 this unstable structure the horse was finally 
 persuaded to place hims!;lf, his master standing 
 on the bridge at his head, a position which no 
 one envied him. The derrick of a sudden 
 began to lower away, to the astonishment and 
 consternation of the horse, who, whatever he 
 may have suspected, certainly could not have 
 looked for any such perfidy as this. He made 
 a desperate effort to back off once and for all, 
 but it was too late. His front feet rapidly 
 descended while his hind ones remained aloft, 
 until he stood at an angle which no horse could 
 be expected to maintain, when down he slid, 
 dragging his master with him, both landing in 
 a heap in the bottom of the boat. Fortunately 
 neither was hurt, and no harm done except 
 to the feelings and heels of the horse, the latter 
 being skinned and the former damaged to the 
 extent of making him desire to jump over- 
 board as soon as he found himself fairly on 
 
 102 
 
Blomidon 
 
 his abused legs. But he was dissuaded from 
 so rash a measure, and his wounds comforted 
 with tar. 
 
 We learned that this was the usual method 
 of putting horses aboard the " Evangeline." 
 
 We left Kingsport and followed the land 
 toward Blomidon ; as we neared the headland 
 the boat went closer to shore. A loon off the 
 port side eyed us anxiously and finally with an 
 unearthly wail disappeared under the water. 
 " Poor thing ! " said M., " it is crying for 
 Glooscap;" and if the Indian legend is true, no 
 doubt it was, for according to that the loons were 
 Glooscap's huntsmen, and he had taught them 
 their strange cry, promising that whenever he 
 heard it he would come to their succour. When 
 he left the world of men the loons were discon- 
 solate, and now they go wandering up and down 
 the earth calling for Glooscap. Glooscap seems 
 to have spent much of his time in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Minas Basin and there to have 
 performed his most remarkable feats. 
 
 The legendary accounts of the formation of 
 the Cornwallis Valley may not be quite as true 
 as the geological story, but they are at least as 
 
 entertaining. According to them, Minas Basin 
 
 103 
 
 Hii 
 
 % 
 
 m 
 
 ■X 
 
 
 < ' 
 
 i'1 
 
 i U 
 
( 
 
 j. 
 
 
 I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 was once a great lake with a wall of rock ex- 
 tending across the end from Blomidon to Par- 
 tridge Island. It was the home of the beavers, 
 and the Great Beaver threatened to flood the 
 country with his monster dam. The people 
 appealed to Glooscap, and he and the beaver 
 had a conflict, in which Glooscap won, and 
 swinging the end of the dam about made an 
 outlet for the waters of Minas, the same out- 
 let through which the tides surge in and out 
 to-day. Up to that time the Cornwallis Val- 
 ley was a part of the lake and was connected 
 with another lake that occupied what is now 
 the Annapolis Valley ; but after the opening of 
 the dam at Blomidon and the gap at Digby 
 Gut, bjth of which Glooscap achieved, the 
 water drained away and left the valleys as we 
 find them to-day. 
 
 "If you do not believe it, you will when we 
 pass Blomidon," M. assured me, " for then you 
 can see the dam." 
 
 As we neared Blomidon, its great wall be- 
 came more and more impressive. The iron 
 front of basalt frowned aloft, a stupendous cliff, 
 resting on the rock below in fine turrets. Be- 
 neath it we saw in detail the terrace of amyg- 
 
 104 
 
Blomidon 
 
 duloid, fragments from it strewing the sand- 
 stone beneath, in places quite concealing it, 
 and forming streams down the gullies where 
 the young trees grew. These fragments we 
 knew were scattered full of crystal treasures of 
 great beauty and no small value, jewels for the 
 roots of the young trees to twine about. 
 
 According to the Micmac legends these 
 jewels were placed on the mountain by Gloos- 
 cap. It seems that the great chief had an old 
 woman for a housekeeper and a beautiful boy 
 for a page. He never married, but devoted his 
 life to the service of man, teaching him the arts 
 of hunting and fishing and curing the game. He 
 also taught him the names of the stars and the 
 constellations and what little he needed to know 
 of agriculture. But there were times when the 
 Great Spirit's magnanimity extended to his old 
 housekeeper and then he caused her to assume 
 the beautiful form of youth, and lavished pre- 
 cious jewels upon her. It was during such a 
 time that he sprinkled the whole mountain in 
 his prodigal generosity. 
 
 From our near view we saw the red sand- 
 stone of Blomidon to be crossed at times by 
 seams of lighter rock and blotched and spotted 
 
 ■M 
 
 \ < 
 
i 
 
 ( 
 
 
 V 
 
 '■u 
 
 Down North and Up Alo7tg 
 
 with riull green. Although Blomidon as seen 
 in profile from the Cornwallis Valley appears 
 to be a narrow bluff, its real form is apparent 
 when one passes along its front, which is not 
 narrow but forms a long wall of rock broken 
 at intervals. The headland grew more inter- 
 esting and more majestic as we went on, so 
 that for a time we almost forgot the water 
 surging about us. But this was not for long; 
 we were nearing the opening to the great 
 trough, where the water rushes through with 
 a velocity of six or seven miles an hour. 
 
 This trough is about four miles wide from 
 Blomidon to Partridge Island, and is about 
 eight miles long, opening at the lower end into 
 Minas Channel, which is itself a mighty trough 
 leading into the Bay of Fundy. 
 
 The Atlantic tides enter Fundy at its broad 
 end, which lies so as to receive them without 
 diminution of tlxeir force ; but Fundy narrows 
 like a funnel, and the pent up waters, continu- 
 ing with the impetus with which they entered, 
 not able to spread out, pile up. 
 
 At Minas Channel the same thing is repeated 
 on a smaller scale. The already abnormally 
 high tide, rushing through the channel, finds 
 
 1 06 
 
 
Blomidon 
 
 ids 
 
 only the narrow outlet into Minas Basin, 
 through which it propels itself with terrific 
 force. 
 
 When wind and tide are in conflict, the strife 
 is terrible and no boat can venture into the 
 maelstrom. Even on a calm day the water 
 can readily be seen pouring through on the 
 flow of the tide, like a strong, swift river, the 
 current being distinguishable for some dis- 
 tance in the calmer waters of the Basin. It 
 rushes along in eddies and whirlpools and 
 white-capped waves, which give one a vivid 
 realisation of what it is capable of under 
 provocation of the wind. 
 
 Blomidon's stern front defies the storm- 
 winds and holds them back from the fertile 
 valley, but glancing from the rock they strike 
 the water, causing terrible commotion. 
 
 Even when the day is calm the " Evangeline " 
 cannot keep her head steadily to her destina- 
 tion as she crosses the channel, for an incoming 
 swirl of water will often strike her and turn her 
 several points from her course. 
 
 The sea bottom at the foot of Blomidon is 
 smooth and solid rock, where no boat can 
 anchor, so when a storm is imminent the 
 
 X07 
 
 ill 
 
 m 
 
 J- 3 1 
 
 ii 
 
Dow?i North and Up Along 
 
 boats flee through the dangerous channel to 
 the safe waters of West Bay. 
 
 As soon as we were fairly past Bloinidon, we 
 could look down the inlet to Cape Splits which 
 forms the farther edge of the trough on the 
 south side, while Cape Sharp is seen extending 
 into the water from the opposite shore. 
 
 Cape Split is a curious-looking object. At 
 its extreme point a great cliff of solid rock 
 seems to have been cleft or split from the 
 mainland by a blow from some mighty sword. 
 It stands alone, towering aloft, the home of 
 countless sea-birds that build their nests upon 
 its unscaleable summit. Their white forms can 
 always be seen in clouds about it. 
 
 While Blomidon's front extends almost due 
 north and south, only the southeastern corner 
 being visible from the Cornwallis Valley, the 
 ridge of rock which terminates in Cape Split 
 lies nearly at right angles to it, extending east 
 and west. 
 
 This ridge is a narrow spit of solid rock ; and 
 
 a glance at the map will show how, if it were 
 
 swung about until Cape Split touched the 
 
 Cumberland shore, Minas Basin would in-^eed 
 
 be a lake. 
 
 1 08 
 
 t' 
 
 ;-i i 
 
Blomidon 
 
 Of this M. reminded me as soon as we came 
 in sight of the queer-looking cape, and it could 
 no longer be doubted that if Glooscap was able 
 to swing this dam of rock hi had really done 
 so. 
 
 M. said it was no harder to believe he swung 
 it than to believe he sailed on Minas' troubled 
 waters in a stone canoe, which, according to the 
 Indian legend, was his usual method of pro- 
 gression excepting when he preferred to ride a 
 whale. These feats indeed are no more re- 
 markable than that performed by Saint Patrick, 
 who, as every one knows, is said to have floated 
 ashore on an iron door when shipwrecked off 
 the east coast of Ireland. 
 
 In front of us as we crossed the channel was 
 the bold front of Partridge Island, while down 
 the channel, on the same side of the coast, 
 stood out the rocky headland of Cape Sharp. 
 
 To the right of Partridge Island, and some 
 distance away, were the picturesque forms of 
 the Five Islands, for whose existence Glooscap 
 was also credited by the Indians as being re- 
 sponsible, he having thrown them at the Great 
 Beaver at the time of the conflict. 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 m 
 
 i, 
 
 109 
 
w^^ 
 
 Hi. 
 
 w I 
 
 IX 
 
 PARTRIDGE ISLAND 
 
 PARRSBORO is not on the shore of 
 the bay, but lies a mile or more up 
 the Parrsboro River. The " Evan- 
 geline " goes there if the tide is high, 
 otherwise she lands at a pier on the Minas 
 shore near Partridge Island. 
 
 Parrsboro is not attractive. The best thing 
 about it is its tidal river with tall piers backing 
 up against the village. 
 
 Partridge Island — as all that portion on the 
 shore near the pier is called — is far more in- 
 teresting. The pier there is a variation of the 
 one at Digby. It is smaller, though perhaps 
 more picturesque, being short and very high, 
 and its black, dripping sides, heavily draped 
 with seaweeds, contain openings into the lower 
 landing which look like caves. It is heavily 
 buttressed on the side away from the incom- 
 ing tide, by a structure filled in with large 
 stones. This was necessary in order to keep 
 it from being pushed bodily away by the 
 spring tides. 
 
 no 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 The pier was built several times before it 
 could be made to stay there. It waa Sir 
 Charles Tupper who persevered, and when 
 worsted by wind and water tried again and 
 again until he got it anchored firm and fast. 
 It cost a great deal of money, and in memory 
 of Sir Charles's many defeats, the pier up to 
 the present day is called Tupper's Snag, though 
 it would seem only fair now to re-christen it 
 Tupper's Triumph. 
 
 It was a disappointment to learn that the 
 pier at Partridge Island was only thirty-five 
 feet high. We had come there for the purpose 
 of being amazed at the sight of a sixty-feet tide, 
 but how could this happen in the presence of 
 a pier with a paltry height of thirty-five feet ? 
 
 We had heard wonderful accounts of the 
 performances of Fundy's tides, but wherever 
 we went the highest tides, the rips and bores, 
 those wonderful cross-currents and wave-like 
 rushings in of the water, were somewhere else. 
 We went to Partridge Island, fondly hoping 
 for the tides we had been promised, only to 
 find a thirty-five-feet pier ! 
 
 Still, we could not complain of the scale 
 upon which the tides were planned there ; and 
 
 III 
 
 U ifi'l 
 
 J \ 
 
 
' I 
 
 I 
 
 i r 
 
 n 
 
 1' ! 
 
 *<;» 
 
 r 
 
 1; 
 
 |.' II 
 
 it 
 
 
 if- s 
 
 li 
 
 1 1 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 had it not been for that pier we should have 
 believed the tide was coming in sixty feet high 
 before our eyes. 
 
 The harbour-master made a helpless gesture 
 wlicn we put some questions to him. Said he, 
 " Don't ask me about the tides of Fundy. I 
 don't know anything about them. Nobody 
 docs. When, nor how, nor why. I know only 
 this, that in summer the high tides come on 
 the full moon, while the winter high tides are 
 on the new moon. But I don't know why." 
 
 In fact, nobody seemed to know anything 
 about the matter. The tide-table in the al- 
 manac did not coincide with the " Evangeline's " 
 schedule for leaving one pier or the other, or 
 for starting at one time or another. " When 
 does the boat start to-morrow ? " is the ques- 
 tion the traveller must ask when planning to 
 depart from Partridge Island. Happy is he 
 if he finds the hour not unseemly and not out 
 of all proximity to the starting time of the 
 Kingsport train. Having found out the 
 " Evangeline's " intentions, he will do well to 
 take his station at the wharf a good half-hour 
 earlier than advertised, for the boat frequently 
 leaves ahead of time. 
 
 112 
 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 From the queer-looking pier on the shore 
 with its theatrical setting of promontories and 
 great sea basin one looks across at Partridge 
 Island, which is not an island, but is connected 
 by a broad curved beach with the mainland. 
 It is a rocky headland rising straight out of the 
 sea, its iron cliff? holding to their channel the 
 wild tides that rush through between it and 
 Blomidon. 
 
 Beyond it across the water we saw Blomidon, 
 Its stern aspect softened by the distance and 
 the sea-fogs, and beyond Blomidon stood out 
 the distant form of Split. Through the opening 
 between Partridge Island and the mainland we 
 got a charming view of Cape Sharp, which is by 
 no tneans as forbidding as its name, while away 
 down the channel below Sharp lay Cape d'Or, 
 though why its golden name we did not dis- 
 cover. 
 
 A tall-masted ship was anchored off the 
 point of Cape Sharp when we first saw it from 
 Partridge Island, giving just the needed touch 
 to the composition of the picture. 
 
 West Bay, which lay between us and Sharp, 
 is the harbour sought by the boats of Minas 
 when foul weather is expected. It is also the 
 
 8 
 
 113 
 
 ^ 5 
 
 'I 
 
 ill 
 
 Hi 
 

 I 
 
 f J 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 anchoring ground for the large vessels that 
 carry coal and wood from the back country, 
 for Parrsboro is the outlet for the Springhill 
 coal which comes to it from the mines by rail. 
 
 Standing near the centre of the amphitheatre 
 made by the cur\'ing beach that connects Par- 
 tridge Island with the mainland, and looking 
 down into the sea basin at low water, one gets 
 perhaps the most vivid realisation of the great 
 Fundy tides. 
 
 It is like looking down the slanting sides of 
 a colossal reservoir; and the beach instead of 
 sand is composed of large pebbles, quite in 
 keeping with the scale upon which this mighty 
 bowl is formed. The water kisses the upper 
 rim and then swiftly falls, leaving bare the 
 sides of the bowl and for a long distance the 
 bottom as well. Then back it comes, rushing 
 up in small, curling breakers, up, up, until it 
 threatens to overflow the land. But this it 
 never does ; try as it will, it can but fill the 
 bowl and then sink back as though exhausted 
 with the effort. 
 
 By perseverance we finally found our high 
 tide and found it before our eyes at Partridge 
 Island. We had watched it come and go several 
 
 114 
 
 m 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 days with tempered emotion, for we could not 
 forget the thirty-five-feet pier, which, to our 
 ignorance, betokened a thirty-five-feet tide. 
 
 Then we began to consider and also some- 
 body told us, and we fell to, and wept in vexa-- 
 tion that we had looked upon and had not 
 been amazed at the wonder we were seeking. 
 
 We did not see the tide rise sixty feet, but 
 we did see it reach the creditable height of 
 fifty feet or over, a very giant of a tide when 
 we understood. The sloping sea bottom, 
 which is bare some distance out at low tide, 
 is bare for a hundred feet at the lowest tides, 
 and at the highest spring-tides the obnoxious 
 thirty-five-feet pier is swallowed completely — 
 as it deserves to be. 
 
 We were told that the highest of Fundy's 
 tides, those that rise seventy feet in the geog- 
 raphies and geologies, must be sought in 
 Cumberland Basin. But we did not seek 
 them there. We had come to Parrsboro for 
 them, and, lo ! they were in Cumberland Basin. 
 If we pursued them to Cumberland Basin, 
 they no doubt would flee away to some yet 
 more distant spot, and we did not wish to put 
 them to the trouble. 
 
 "5 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 »— ^ I ■■'-■ -III, — .. .II.!..- ■ .11— III I ■!■■■■ I.I.I. — Ml ■ I - , l«1 
 
 We had the same difficulty with the bores 
 and rips; wherever we went they were some- 
 where else. So we never once saw the tide 
 coming in, in a solid wall five feet high, 
 though our faith that it does so is still un- 
 shaken. We were told that at the right time 
 of year — of course this was the wrong time — 
 we could see a very creditable display of tidal 
 fury at the foot of Partridge Island. But 
 though we did not see the most pronounced 
 of Fundy's phenomena, we had the best and 
 grandest always with us, the swift filling and 
 emptying of the mighty sea basins, the wet 
 and dripping sides of the tall piers close- 
 grown with seaweed, and the shining red 
 chasms of the tidal rivers. 
 
 Partridge Island has the same formation as 
 Blomidon, though it is less than half as high. 
 From the sea on the east rises a turreted cliff 
 of basalt, the lower part of which is amygda- 
 loid ; while on the western side the basalt 
 forms only a thin covering to the cliff of 
 amygdaloid. Underneath the whole can here 
 and there be seen cropping out the under- 
 lying red sandstone. 
 
 So Partridge Island has, too, its belt of 
 
 X16 
 
 iv 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 jewels, a broader belt in proportion to its 
 size than even Blomidon wears, and its treas- 
 ures are much more accessible, being indeed 
 within easy reach of the hammer of the col- 
 lector at low tide. 
 
 Amethyst, agate, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper, 
 and opal belong to Partridge Island, and it has 
 besides crystals all its own, while of those it 
 shares with Blomidon and the rocks back of 
 Digby, some are here found in their finest forms. 
 
 Partridge Island stands alone, a turret of 
 crystals on a foreign shore, for the rock com- 
 posing the coast back of it belongs to the 
 lower carboniferous sandstones and shales. 
 The great bed of trap which was expelled 
 when Blomidon and all North Mountain 
 received their gifts of jewelled belt and iron 
 crown ends in isolated bluffs along this car- 
 boniferous coast. What has become of the 
 intervening portion, that lay where Minas 
 Basin now gives hospitable entertainment to 
 the fleeing tides of Fundy ? 
 
 Partridge Island was one of Glooscap's re- 
 sorts, — he crossing to it in his great stone 
 canoe, though when he had long distances to 
 
 go he called up a whale. 
 
 117 
 
 ■A 
 t.ti 
 
 M 
 
 1 : 
 
 
 'XV 
 
Wr^ 
 
 11 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 ^— —.. — ■— II.—— ■..y -I — -■ ... ., ■■ — ^. ,.-_. ■■ „ I , — ■■■ . — ■ — 
 
 Glooscap's whales appear to have been de- 
 ficient in power to see the land as they neared 
 it, and depended upon their august ric' *o tell 
 them in time to prevent bumping th . noses 
 against the shore. But this Glooscap never 
 did. Wishing to land dry-shod, he urged the 
 poor whale to its utmost speed, when it landed 
 itself high and dry, greatly to its chagrin. But 
 Glooscap was not ungrateful, and putting the 
 end of his bow against the whale, with a slight 
 motion of his arm he slid it back into the 
 water. His whales had a great fondness for 
 smoking and sometimes asked Gloos' n for a 
 pipe at parting. This he willingly olied, 
 when the whale went its way, smoking, to sea, 
 
 Glooscap is said to have had a famous revel 
 on Partridge Island which the Micmacs speak 
 of with awe to this day. It was upon the 
 occasion of a visit from a young magician bear- 
 ing the name KitpooseSgiinow. Glooscap in- 
 vited the guest of the distinguished name to go 
 fishing with him by torchlight, and got in readi- 
 ness his monster canoe built of granite rock and 
 supplied with paddles and spear of stone. Ac- 
 cording to the legend, the youth caught up the 
 boat as though it had been a birch-bark canoe 
 
 ii8 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 and tossed it into the water. The game they 
 caught was a large whale, which the youth 
 landed as though it were a herring. They 
 carried their booty back to Partridge Island, 
 whence they had embarked, and finished the 
 night by cooking and eating the whole whale. 
 
 Glooscap's power over cold and heat reminds 
 us of the season legends of other peoples. He 
 had contests with his rivals in which each tried 
 to overcome the other with cold. When it 
 was Glooscap's turn to resist he built a mighty 
 fire of whale oil, but toward morning invariably 
 succumbed and allowed his friends to be frozen, 
 but never forgot to restore them when the 
 contest was ov^ ". Then he took his turn at 
 congealing his op^^onent's train and succeeded 
 in time, though the opponent was possessed of 
 the same power to restore his frozen followers. 
 
 Glooscap finally disappeared at the encroach- 
 ments of the white man, driven away by the 
 wickedness of the people. When he was with 
 them all the animals lived in accord and under- 
 stood one another, but at his departure there 
 was a confusion of tongues, and the wolf could 
 no longer understand the words of the bear, 
 nor any animal the speech of another species. 
 
 119 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( 
 
 
 ill 
 
1W" 
 
 iiii 
 
 I- 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 The great snowy owls went deep into the 
 forests, to return no more until the coming of 
 Glooscap. They may at time's be heard cry- 
 ing, " Koo Koo Skoos ! Koo Koo Skoos ! " — 
 Oh, I ^;n sorry ! Oh, I am sorry ! 
 
 The children are always pleased to know 
 that Gloo'.cap had two little dogs no larger 
 than mice which he carried in his pocket, or 
 up his sleeve, but which could suddenly in- 
 crease to the size and form of the largest and 
 swiitest and fiercest of their kind when he 
 needed their services. He had a way of turn- 
 ing things into stone, and by looking down 
 the channel toward Cape d'Or, one can see 
 Spencer's Island, which is not an island at all, 
 but merely Glooscap's kettle turned upside 
 down. He put it there after using it, to wait 
 for his return, and there it remains to this day. 
 \{ one passing that way notices large boulders 
 or rocks sticking out of the water, they are the 
 scraps left after he had tried out his oil. 
 
 Down that way somewhere, too, he once 
 turned into stone a moose that tried to escape 
 by swimming ; and the two dogs that were 
 phasing it still sit on the shore with their 
 cars pricked forward watching it, — both solid 
 
 I20 
 
 \X-- 
 
P artridge Island 
 
 rock. Many, many other marvels did the 
 mighty Glooscap, friend of man, perform. 
 
 The Indians are gone. They are no longer 
 to be seen as of old on Minas' shore. They 
 are almost as mythical at Parrsboro as is 
 Glooscap himself; only their legends still 
 linger about the rocks and coast they loved 
 in days gone by. 
 
 Once upon a dme, and not so very long 
 ago, Parrsboro was an important boat-building 
 centre. At that time the town, what there 
 was of it, was down by the shore where the 
 Parrsboro House now stands. 
 
 The pine-trees are gone, and Parrsboro's ship- 
 yards have lost their prestige. Lumber still 
 comes from the back country, and, such as it 
 is, makes the wealth of the region, in conjunc- 
 tion with that other timber which has been 
 preserved in the depths of the earth and altered 
 to form the valuable coal-beds of Springhill 
 and neighbouring localities. 
 
 " When the town was on the shore," was 
 the halcyon period of Parrsboro. 
 
 There is a hill a little back from the shore, 
 and between this and the beach the old town 
 stood. The terrace above the deep sea bowl 
 
 I 
 
 Hi 
 
 \'-^ 
 
 k 
 
 131 
 
• ;r 
 
 
 :'iv 
 
 !|V: ?: 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 was aglow with flowers of such brightness and 
 profusion that they are still remembered. 
 
 We should have liked to see the village in 
 its flower-garden age. In its nook back of the 
 great sea basin, with its setting of impressive 
 bluflTs that make Minas at this point so splen- 
 didly picturesque, and with ample flower-gar- 
 dens brightening the stern coast, it must have 
 been well worth a visit. 
 
 In spite of the pebbly shore whose stones 
 roll under the feet, the visitor will not be long 
 in finding his way across to Partridge Island, 
 which is as delightful as a mountain of crys- 
 tals ought to be. On the land side it is thickly 
 wooded with rather small " hard wood " trees, 
 as the people here call all but the conifers ; and 
 we wandered along a grassy winding path, 
 quite away from the outer world, into a wild- 
 wood seclusion. 
 
 Presently we came to firs and spruces cov- 
 ered with sage-green moss, and then to a 
 hollow where the trees were dead, standing in 
 close ranks with gray, interlaced limbs, heavily 
 mantled with sage-green moss that hung like 
 beards from the lower branches. It was a fit 
 dwelling-place for the gnomes, its deep recesses 
 
 122 
 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 dark at midday, and we felt that lost spirits 
 might be wandering there in the twilight. 
 
 Beyond it the living trees were scarcely less 
 mossy; and we were met by a small red 
 squirrel that said not a word but stared at us 
 in a silent and un-squirrel-like manner, and 
 fled wildly into the depths of the forest, as 
 though death were at his heels. 
 
 The squirrels here were a strange breed : 
 whether the spell of the dead forest was over 
 them I cannot say, but they were a speechless 
 race, peering out from behind a tree-trunk and 
 then dashing away without challenge or word 
 of welcome. Perhaps they were Glooscap's 
 squirrels, and held us responsible for driving 
 him away. 
 
 As we went on, the trees grew larger and 
 more apart, and finally we had the surprise and 
 delight of coming suddenly to the edge of the 
 cliff that stands upon the bay side. It took 
 steady nerves to stand on the brink and look 
 down the stern wall of rock to the tides below. 
 The cliff was broken and terraced on one side, 
 and the incoming tide was impatiently raging 
 against its hard front. It was an awesome 
 
 sight, and we there got nearest to the tides 
 
 123 
 
 
 
 >t* 
 
 \ t:*' 
 
 ^ 1^1 
 
J; 
 
 Ij A ik 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 where they thunder against the walls of rock 
 that hold them unrelentingly to their channel. 
 From the top of the cliff we got a fine view 
 down the channel, — of West Bay with its 
 rocky sentinel of Cape Sharp in the fore- 
 ground ; of Cape Split in the distance with its 
 isolated peak encircled by the white-winged 
 birds that continually fly about it ; and far away 
 the distant headland of Cape d'Or, with Spen- 
 cer's Island to remind us of Glooscap. Here 
 and there on the water we saw sudden flashes 
 of light that we could not account for, until we 
 remembered the peeps we had seen on another 
 part of Minas* shore, and then we knew the 
 little silver-breasted birds were here also per- 
 forming their marvellous evolutions. 
 
 The headlands of this strange shore have all 
 a peculiar interest. Blomidon and Partridge 
 Island have the romance of their jewels. Cape 
 Sharp and the distant Cape d'Or share with 
 them in this, f^r they, too, like Partridge 
 Island, stand in their majesty of red sandstone 
 and crystal-bearing trap, on the edge of the 
 carboniferous coast. They have the same 
 formation as Blomidon, and yield their treas- 
 ures to the seeker. 
 
 124 
 
 'J:' : 
 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 The Five Islands are also portions of the 
 same volcanic formation, and have their crystals. 
 
 But Split has no jewels. The trap here 
 overflowed and piled up so that the strange- 
 looking cape is made of the iron-hard trap 
 only. Devoid of vegetation, devoid of beauty, 
 Cape Split is yet the chosen home of the soft- 
 breasted birds that continually caress it. 
 
 The most charming place of all at Partridge 
 Island was the hill back of the Parrsboro 
 House. Up its sides ranked the ever-present 
 spruce and fir trees, but the top was open, with 
 only an occasional stretch of alders or a sym- 
 metrical young fir. 
 
 Uncut grass, now a soft, silvery yellow, the 
 colour of a sheep's back, rippled as the wind 
 passed over, while great patches of the bluest 
 of low-growing blueberries, bright red bunch- 
 berries, and deep crimson cranberries made a joy- 
 ous medley of bright colours. There were two 
 kinds of cranberries there, — one that looked 
 like those we know so well in our fall markets, 
 and the small upland berry, deep red and with 
 a pleasant sub-acid flavour all its own. 
 
 Never saw we such prolific blueberries. 
 They grew close to the earth, wiiich was one 
 
 12? 
 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 ^— ^ 11 ■ I ■■ .11 -ll-.M I -I - ■ —-^ ■-■—■■ ^ 
 
 solid blue expanse wherever they appeared. 
 In short, never had we seen such a merry, 
 berry-bedecked hillside. The bunchberries 
 laughed in scarlet glee all down one side of it, 
 while the cranberries did their best to outshine 
 them in extensive patches here and there. 
 Fair as it was under foot, there was in 
 addition a splendid view from this breezy, 
 berry-distracted hill-top. 
 
 On one side shimmered the picturesque 
 channel, with its bird-silvered Split, its Cape 
 Sharp and the rest, while jewel-belted Blomi- 
 don and Partridge Island guarded the entrance 
 to the Basin. On the other side lay the shin- 
 ing Basin and the Cumberland coast, with the 
 uprising Five Islands, and nearer the Two 
 Brothers, small but jewelled islands like the 
 others, where one goes when in need of extra 
 beautiful moss agates. Shining in the sunlight 
 was Silver Crag, which is not jewelled and is 
 only silver by courtesy of the sun, that causes 
 its gypsum cliffs thus to shine forth. Far 
 beyond is Economy Point, the other side of 
 which Minas Basin grows narrow, and is called 
 Cobequid Bay. 
 
 The hill-top from which we get this most 
 
 126 
 
 L' 1^ 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 in 
 
 d is 
 luses 
 Far 
 
 extended of all views is so pleasant a place one 
 loves to linger there and to come again and 
 again. Its outlook is not so dramatic as the 
 one on the steep cliff of Partridge Island, but 
 it is more charming. For every-day living 
 one prefers the merry bunchberries, the blue- 
 berries, the cranberries, and the grass the 
 colour of a sheep's back, to the terrifying cliff 
 with its sombre surroundings of rock and dark- 
 green fir-trees. 
 
 The picturesque new red sandstone elevations 
 with their overlying trap give to the west end 
 of Minas Basin its chief attraction, but there is 
 much to be said for the twisted and contorted 
 carboniferous beds that predominate in Cum- 
 berland County. They contain the valuable 
 coal deposits that crop out at Springhill and 
 abut upon the shore of Cumberland Basin, and 
 they are the source whence come the grind- 
 stones that gladden the farmers' hearts, but not 
 the backs of their boys, all over the United 
 States. 
 
 At Jogglns on Cumberland Basin the car- 
 boniferous strata are broken off short, as North 
 Mountain is on Minas ; and there can be studied, 
 
 as almost nowhere else in the world, these 
 
 127 
 
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 i 
 
 1,1 
 
 i 
 
 i M 
 
 %m 
 
 .1 
 
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 " .) 
 
 f,..:^ 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 interesting and ofttimes beautiful formations. 
 We heard of fossil trees standing upright on 
 the shore, and of fossils as various and valuable 
 to the geologist as the gems of Blomidon and 
 its neighbours are to the collectors of beautiful 
 stones. 
 
 The " back country *' is extremely rocky and 
 rugged with rolling hills and intervening valleys, 
 more or less fertile. The woods are exquisitely 
 mossy and the brooks the most distracting 
 of their kind, as clear as crystal and as wild as 
 the rocky land through which they find their 
 sparkling way. Their pools are not untenanted, 
 as one can discover by sprinkling crumbled 
 leaves on the surface when the inquisitive trout 
 put up their noses and display their colours. 
 
 The lumbermen set up their portable saw- 
 mills back in the woods ; and the " deals," as 
 they call the unplaned spruce boards, cannot 
 float down the turbulent and meandering 
 brooks, nor yet be drawn by waggons or sleds 
 through the rocky wilderness, so sluices are 
 built, sometimes many miles in length, which 
 carry the water of the turbulent brooks in a 
 steady flow down the hills. Down hills and 
 
 across valleys the wooden troughs float the deals, 
 
 128 
 
Partridge Island 
 
 and we passed under one that spanned the 
 valley eighty feet above our heads, held up on 
 a trestle with slender spider-like legs. These 
 sluices leak freely ; besides, the water washes 
 over the sides whenever a deal comes along 
 forming cascades more interesting to observe 
 than to pass under. The deals sometimes go 
 overboard, and we saw them strewing the ground 
 along the course of the high sluice and breathed 
 a sigh of relief when safely past the spot where 
 a deal might have dropped down some eighty 
 feet on our heads. 
 
 One day we bade farewell to Parrsboro and 
 trusted ourselves to the mercy of the " Evange- 
 line" at break of day. A light fog partly 
 obscured the surrounding headlands that looked 
 out at us dim and mysterious. 
 
 Il* 
 
 i\ 
 
 5nt 
 
 129 
 
 Im 
 
 
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 n 
 
'ii<: 
 
 m 
 
 X 
 
 HALIFAX 
 
 GO to Halifax ! is a command many 
 have received, but few obeyed. To 
 most of those thus apostrophised 
 in early youth "Halifax" had no 
 concrete existence, but was an undesirable and 
 unlocatable place, to " go to " when one had 
 been troublesome. 
 
 Not to have gone to Halifax cannot be 
 regarded as a serious deprivation, for the way 
 there across the country is not enchanting, nor 
 is the city itself uncommonly attractive. 
 
 But if, being at Grand Pre, one does go to 
 Halifax and on the way passes Windsor at low 
 tide, he will be rewarded by beholding the 
 ruddy bed of the Avon during the temporary 
 absence of the river, that tidal stream having 
 taken itself off and left the ships in its channel 
 to lean ingloriously against the wharves with 
 their keels in the mud, waiting as best they may 
 for the unnatural river to come back and restore 
 them to their wonted dignity. It must be 
 
 130 
 
Halifax 
 
 humiliating to a ship to lie in a river that goes 
 out from under it twice a day. 
 
 Besides possessing the bed of the inconstant 
 Avon, Windsor is distinguished as the birth- 
 place of Judge Thomas C. Haliburton, the 
 humorist, historian, and man of affairs who was 
 born in 1796 and became known to fame as 
 " Sam Slick," the prototype of the conven- 
 tional Yankee of caricature, of the stage, and 
 now of popular fancy, who is amusing the world 
 under the newer name of " Uncle Sam." 
 Windsor also has the oldest college in Canada, 
 King's College, which was opened in 1789. 
 
 Outside of the town, on Minas Basin and 
 on the shores of the St. Croix River, white 
 gypsum crops out in sepulchral-looking cliffs. 
 It is called " plaster " by the Nova Scotians, and 
 is mined in large quantities and sent to the 
 United States, where, having been calcined, it is 
 sold as plaster of Paris, or merely ground fine 
 as a fertiliser. 
 
 The mineral called terra alba is found north 
 of Windsor on Cobequid Bay. We did not 
 see terra alba nor feel special interest in it 
 until we discovered with what pride its pos- 
 session was regarded by the people. Then we 
 
 131 
 
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 }A 
 
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 h.: . » '• 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 bestirred ourselves and found out that it is a 
 silicate of aluminium, or, in common speech, 
 just ordinary pipe clay, which is immorally used 
 for adulterating candies and paint, but other- 
 wise for whitening the sails of yachts and 
 making irresistible the boot-tops, sword-belts, 
 and scabbards of the brave soldier on parade 
 day. 
 
 After a time one begins to have a feeling 
 that if he travels long enough in Nova Scotia 
 he will find out where everything comes from 
 without recourse to the encyclopsedias. It 
 brings grindstones, plaster of Paris, and pipe- 
 clay nearer to one's daily life, as it were, to 
 behold with the mortal eye the rocks whence 
 they come. Such things, like apples to the 
 city-bred child, had always seemed to us to be 
 the product of barrels and boxes in the back 
 recesses of the city shops. 
 
 Aside from gypsum, there is very little to 
 interest one between Windsor and Halifax. 
 The country is stony and overgrown w\^\ 
 stunted evergreens. 
 
 As one nears Halifax, Bee ' ap .rs 
 
 all the prettier for contrast w the .derness. 
 
 It is a long arm of the Atlantic t lat reaches 
 
 132 
 
 ■'i ^ i 
 
Halifax 
 
 to 
 ax. 
 h 
 
 up into the land apparently for the purpose of 
 affording pleasant sites on its hilly shores for the 
 homes of the more prosperous " Haligonians." 
 
 Close to Halifax, where the Basin contracts 
 into " the narrows," by which it joins the bay, 
 is a picturesque negro settlement, looking very 
 much out of place in this cold northern land ; 
 and we wondered how these children of the 
 tropics found their way here, until we recalled — 
 but not with pride — the slavery epoch in our 
 own history. 
 
 Halifax has the site for a splendid city. It 
 lies on a peninsula clasped in bright arms of 
 the sea, and from the centre rises a beautiful 
 hill two hundred and fifty feet high, that looks 
 in all directions over sea and land. Upon this 
 hill stands the citadel, for Halifax has the dis- 
 tinction of being the most important naval 
 station of the British Empire in the Western 
 Hemisphere, and in order to support this heavy 
 responsibility it is armed to the teeth. 
 
 It began its career as a fort, long ago, when 
 the Acadians and Indians were misbehaving, 
 and when its name was Chebucto. Its fortifi- 
 cations have grown with its growth, rather 
 faster indeed ; for with^ a population of less 
 
 133 
 
 %. 
 
 
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 \ 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 m ■.! ■■ ■■■ .1 , ■ . ■ ... - , ■ I I. I .1 ■ I I » ■— ^— i^^ 
 
 than 40,000, it has forts in every direction, — on 
 the islands in the bay, on the rim of the town, 
 at the navy yard, and, most conspicuous of all, 
 in the centre of the town is the citadel. One 
 could not throw a stone in Halifax without 
 hitting a fort. All roads lead to forts, and 
 every walk terminates in a fort. 
 
 The United States needs only to look at 
 her sister sitting serene among her forts to feel 
 how excellent is peace. 
 
 Halifax itself is a disappointment, — one 
 might even say a shock. After having been 
 advised to " go there " all one's life, one finally 
 goes, to find this city of great expectations 
 neither beautiful nor picturesque, in short, 
 nothing better than commonplace, a mere hud- 
 dle of narrow gloomy streets and cheap build- 
 ings ; and it is dirty, too, being addicted to the 
 intemperate use of soft coal, — a pernicious 
 habit which spoils so many towns in the United 
 States which might be charming but for it. 
 
 One feels resentment, too, toward Halifax 
 for being a mean city when nature has been 
 so lavish with her sparkling waters, her pic- 
 turesque hills, and her enchanting outlooks. 
 Halifax, set as she is, ought to be a gem, a 
 
 134 
 
 ! ■• V 
 
 M fl 
 
Ha life 
 
 ax 
 
 delight to the eye. She ought to be ashamed 
 of being less than that. 
 
 But she is not a gem, and she is not ashamed. 
 She is puffed up with pride. She is proud of 
 her soldiers and of her forts, of her parks, and 
 of her public buildings, and of her harbour. 
 She has red-coated soldierr^^ and many of them. 
 They are more numerous even than the forts, 
 and they are always on the streets, where they 
 lend a certain appearance of festivity to the 
 otherwise dull town. Their presence is deco- 
 rative, but individually these soldiers are not 
 very impressive. Many of them are certainly 
 round-shouldered ; and with their bright red 
 coats and tiny round caps perched on an angle 
 c^ the head and held in place by straps under 
 the chin, they look so irresistibly like the long- 
 tailed gentleman who sits on the hand-organ 
 and doffs his cap for pennies, that it is difficult 
 to contemplate them with the respect due to 
 their glorious calling. They are gathered in 
 from the remote districts of the mother coun- 
 try, and present the appearance of having been 
 gathered recently and before they were quite 
 ripe. 
 
 As to the forts, if a city wishes to glory in 
 
 135 
 
 r 
 
 m 
 
 % 
 
 'I ':. 
 
 \-": 
 
 
? f 
 
 i-; 
 
 li 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 the appliances of war, Halifax undoubtedly has 
 cause. Naturally one's first visit is to the 
 citadel rising from the heart of the town. 
 
 Until recently strangers were not allowed to 
 enter it, but now any one is welcome to walk 
 about the ramparts and look down into the 
 moat ; but no stranger may go inside the fort 
 nor make any drawings of any part of It, nor 
 use the reprehensible kodak, as a wicked 
 " American " was caught doing some years 
 ago, to the confusion of the British Govern- 
 ment and the betrayal of the mighty citadel of 
 Halifax. He probably wanted the pictures for 
 his album, but his Innocent thirst for photo- 
 graphic distinction resulted In closing the cita- 
 del to his countrymen for several years. 
 
 There is a fine view from the citadel, and the 
 town lies spread at one's feet with all its sins 
 upon it. But, after all, there is a certain quaint 
 flavour about the place, and the water-front is 
 in part really picturesque, with the ships from 
 all ports of the world lying at anchor or un- 
 loading at the wharves. 
 
 Whatever may or may not be said for the 
 
 city of Halifax itself, there is no fault to be 
 
 found with its very beautiful harbour. The 
 
 136 
 
 \i 
 
 i\ • . 
 
Ha life 
 
 ax 
 
 people say it is one of the finest harbours in 
 the whole world, and notwithstanding their 
 interested statement one can easily believe it. 
 
 Halifax has its Public Gardens within the 
 town; and just outside is Point Pleasant Park, 
 a large tract of land for the most part in a state 
 of nature, and very charming nature, with its 
 forest trees and outcropping rocks and its out- 
 looks over land and water. At one point a 
 little patch of Scotch heather is growing. How 
 it came there we did not learn, whether by ac- 
 cident or design, and how long it will remain 
 we cannot predict, as visitors are allowed to 
 gather it without restraint. 
 
 Unfortunately, Halifax yields to the weak- 
 ness of boasting of her public buildings ; and it 
 is only after the " Government House," the 
 " Parliament House," and the new freestone 
 post-office have been fairly faced and found 
 wanting according to non-provincial standards 
 of beauty and magnificence, that the disappoint- 
 ment in Halifax as a city is complete. 
 
 There is a tradition to the effect that woollen 
 and leather goods are very cheap and of un- 
 usual excellence in this highly fortified town, 
 but like other traditions this has but a slight 
 
 137 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 r 
 
 1- 
 
 i 
 1 i 
 
 j I 1^ 
 
 1 1 
 
 ii ; 
 
 ^; .'1 
 
 iill 
 
 
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 '4 
 
 f,;V, 
 
 H^: 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 foundation in fact, with the exception of the 
 English travclHng rugs. 
 
 These were a delight to the eye and a men- 
 ace to the purse, as it was impossible to refrain 
 from buying more than we needed, — an act of 
 extravagance w.iich we basely excused by cast- 
 ing the blame upon Cape Breton. For thither 
 we were bound ; and we hope any one will agree 
 with us that it would not be safe to enter that 
 frigid region without several English travelling 
 rugs of fine texture and pleasing colours. 
 
 Halifax still keeps market-day. Its observ- 
 ance is not as important as formerly, when on 
 that day only could the citizens get their 
 garden supplies. Now there are shops where 
 fresh vegetables are sold as in other cities, and 
 the old market-days — Wednesday and Satur- 
 day — have lessened in importance and no 
 doubt in pomp. Their chief patrons now are 
 the poorer class of housekeepers, yet one being 
 in Halifax on market-day should certainly visit 
 the market. Its scene of action is the side- 
 walks and streets around the post-office square. 
 Here at n early hour the country folk with 
 their loads begin to congregate. 
 
 The visitor would do well to go rather early 
 
 138 
 
var-'Y W'^W 
 
 Halifax 
 
 in the morning before the crowd of buyers 
 has assembled, else, jostled by the throng, 
 he will find himself in a position analogous 
 to that of the hero in "Yankee Doodle" who 
 " could not see the town there were so many 
 houses." 
 
 One cannot see the market there are so 
 many people. When seen in the autumn it 
 consists of many waggons bearing loads of 
 bloomy cabbages, yellow shining pumpkins, 
 brown-skinned potatoes, red beets, yellow car- 
 rots, and other cheery-looking vegetables, 
 backed up against the curbstone. 
 
 What is there about newly gathered vege- 
 tables that makes one always want to stop and 
 look ? It is something besides their bright 
 colours and their picturesque effect. It is faint 
 memories of happy childhood hours spent on the 
 farm, and beyond that it is the love — latent or 
 active — in every heart, for mother earth, from 
 whose bosom come these gifts. 
 
 The waggons and their loads were the best 
 part of the show. Far outnumbering them 
 were the men, women, and boys, chiefly women, 
 who stood or sat on the curbstones surrounded 
 by baskets of things to sell — or there might 
 
 139 
 
 ! it 
 
 '■'1 
 
 ■' n 
 i -J 1 
 
 . s 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 if 
 
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 3:' 1 
 
 U 
 
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 1' 'I I • 
 
 
 ^B> lit L 
 
 i^ 
 
 Down North and Up Alon^ 
 
 be but one small basket containing the week's 
 gleanings from the home-patch. 
 
 Eggs were so plenty that we were In danger 
 of literally " walking on eggs," and we picked 
 our way in fear and trembling. Baskets con- 
 taining little deep-red, upland cranbei.ies or 
 dark blue huckleberries gaily called our atten- 
 tion from the all-absorbing eggs, and one little 
 old grandmother had come with two or three 
 pints of belated red raspberries. 
 
 Near by a woman had a plucked fowl and 
 a handful of parsley. 
 
 A boy sat listlessly beside a pail of snails, 
 unconscious that they were seizing the oppor- 
 tunity to crawl over the sides of their prison 
 and away from culinary distinction, down the 
 crowded sidewalk in a vain search for the sea. 
 
 A man near by had a leg of lamb in his 
 basket, and another had three large eels that 
 acted as if they would like to follow the ex- 
 ample set by the snails, but their keeper was 
 alert and their hopes defeated by circumstances 
 over which they had no control. 
 
 One corner was bright with the flower- 
 venders, who presented large trays of migno- 
 nette, sweet peas, and many old-fashioned 
 
 340 
 
Halifax 
 
 garden posies to the passer-by, while near them 
 the herb-woman held enormous bouquets of 
 gray-looking herbs that exhaled a savour of 
 coming turkey-dressing and seed-cakes. Not 
 far from the flower-women were gathered to- 
 gether some " Preston Negroes " with their 
 contributions of eggs and onions. They were 
 the basket-makers for this whole camp, for 
 everything was displayed in baskets, most of 
 them after one pattern, and all made by the 
 negroes of Preston. They were pretty baskets, 
 strong and of unique design. 
 
 Of course there were Indians. What would 
 an open-air market in the north amount to 
 without them ? They were across the street 
 and by themselves, and truth compels one to 
 confess they were not interesting. They hadj, 
 as it were, fallen between the races, and pos- 
 sessed neither the charm of the savage nor the 
 advantages of the civilised state. Most of 
 them were half-breeds, and all of them were 
 dressed in the cast-off clothing of rhe white 
 people. They had toy bows and arrows for 
 s.ile and tawdry ornaments such as can be 
 bought by the quantity in any city of the 
 United States. But they added some pictur- 
 
 141 
 
 
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 •'! 
 
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 V 
 
 I. 
 
 
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 ■f 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 csqueness to the scene, as in colour and features 
 they were still Indian. 
 
 Fruit was a luxury in Halifax. The open- 
 air market was bright with vegetables and 
 flowers, but with the exception of cranberries, 
 huckleberries, and small sour plums there was 
 no native fruit to gladden the eye or refresh 
 the palate. So we had concluded, when sud- 
 denly our glance fell upon a booth as bright 
 as the flower-trays with its assortment of 
 beautiful peaches, pears, and plums. Surely 
 this was remarkable fruit to be matured in a 
 northern climate, but to our amusement the 
 vender pointed to his wares and with mis- 
 placed pride uttered the disillusioning word 
 — California ! 
 
 The negro in Halifax is an anomaly. He 
 is hardly seen elsewhere in Nova Scotia, but 
 here there are so many that one keeps ques- 
 tioning the latitude. Surely one has made a 
 mistake and gone " down South " instead of 
 "down North." But a glance at the early 
 history of Halifax makes the mystery clear. 
 From its beginning this town seems to have 
 been a place for the reception of outcasts of 
 various sorts. 
 
 I4t 
 
 
Halifax 
 
 Thither came the fugitive negroes from the 
 cotton States of the South, and thither were 
 sent the insurgent Maroons from the island 
 of Jamaica. The history of the Maroons is 
 not the least romantic episode connected with 
 the history of Halifax. 
 
 It seems that upon the conquest of Jamaica 
 by the English in 1655 ^^^ Spaniards pos- 
 sessed a large number of African slaves. 
 These people, called Maroons, refused to sub- 
 mit to English rule, but fled to the mountains, 
 where they exercised their ingenuity in harass- 
 ing the English. After a long-continued and 
 desperate resistance they were finally subdued, 
 and some six hundred of them sent to Halifax. 
 
 His Royal Highness, Prince Edward, then 
 commander-in-chief at Halifax, being g ;atly 
 impressed with the orderly and handsome 
 appearance of these people, set them to work 
 at the fortifications on Citadel Hill, paying 
 them th< same amount that other labourers 
 were paid. We were told that the " Maroon 
 bastion** remains as a monument of their 
 industry. 
 
 All went well until cold weather came and 
 the negroes were removed to Preston — a few 
 
 M3 
 
 I 
 
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 I " 
 
 ll 
 
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 n>: 
 
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 AW' 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 fcl — ... I - . , I 1.1 — — I I I l..l I..IIM.-I— ■■■ — .,. ■ 
 
 miles from Halifax and across the harbour — 
 to spend the winter. Then the people from 
 Jamaica, half frozen and half starved, wanted 
 to go home, refused to do any more work, 
 then or afterwards, and became generally 
 riotous. Finally, the well disposed were re- 
 moved to a place near the harbour of Halifax, 
 where they probably formed the nucleus to 
 the picturesque settlement which we passed 
 upon our approach to that city. 
 
 In 1800 the troublesome Maroons at Pres- 
 ton were sent to Sierra Leone, having cost 
 both Jamaica and the British Government a 
 very large sum of money. 
 
 Other importations and exportatlons of the 
 
 coloured race followed, Preston being always 
 
 one of the centres of their settlement ; and the 
 
 pretty brown-skinned girls who sit on the 
 
 curbstone every market day with their berries 
 
 and eggs are descendants of those insurgents 
 
 from sunny Jamaica or of the fugitives from 
 
 the cotton fields of the United States. It is 
 
 said the negroes are not yet reconciled to the 
 
 climate of Nova Scotia — small wonder that 
 
 they are not ! — and though many of them were 
 
 born there, they sigh for the palms of the 
 
 144 
 
 ij ( - 
 
Halifax 
 
 traditional land of their ancestors and have 
 little zest for the fir-trees of the North. 
 
 One wonders whether it was the custom of 
 sending disaffected people to Halifax that orig- 
 inated the historic advice, perhaps less common 
 now than formerly, to " go to Halifax.'* 
 
 To go there, however, is not wholly a punish- 
 ment, and there is no reason why it might not 
 become a very agreeable place to " go to " in 
 the summer-time. One misses the tides of 
 Fundy here, and there is no doubt that their 
 sudden loss has upon the mind of the traveller 
 the effect of belittling the charming coast about 
 Halifax. All other shores seem tame for a 
 long time after one has known the mighty rise 
 and fall of the waters of the Bay of Fundy. 
 
 t, 
 
 
 . 
 
 I: 
 
 10 
 
 MS 
 
 -^ .|i 
 
 SVit 
 
XI 
 
 TOWARD CAPE BRETON 
 
 I'.i 
 
 
 To turn our backs upon Halifax was 
 to turn our faces toward Cape Breton 
 Island, that unknown land of hoped- 
 for adventure that lay farther away 
 "down north." 
 
 We went by rail as far as Truro, through a 
 desolate region of stunted fir-trees and loose 
 rocks like that with which the journey to Hali- 
 fax had made us familiar. Yet, after all, this 
 depressing country may be about to yield up 
 some mineral treasure that will make it blos- 
 som like the rose in the mind's eye of its 
 owner. For in this strange land valuable min- 
 erals are ever being discovered in unexpected 
 places. Indeed, not far from this very region 
 that we have scorned, gold mines have been 
 found hidden among the hills. 
 
 The gnomes of the rocks seem to have 
 selected Nova Scotia as their own particular 
 work-shop, where they have fitted together 
 their strange mosaics of multiform geological 
 
 X46 
 
T'oward Cape Breton 
 
 formations, their rocks marvellous, and their 
 minerals and metals precious or curious. Fine 
 gold, coal, iron, and gypsum have made Nova 
 Scotia famous the world over, and to these the 
 queer rocky mineral-packed peninsula adds 
 marketable amounts of silver, tin, zinc, copper, 
 manganese, plumbago, pottery clay, terra alba, 
 salt, granite, marble, slate, limestone, and grind- 
 stones. Doubtless this is but a tithe of what 
 she could do an she would, and of what she 
 will render up in the future. 
 
 Although we did not as tourists take pleas- 
 ure in the scrubby country around Halifax, nor 
 care for the commercial value of its products, 
 we are persuaded that the geologist would find 
 it of surpassing interest. 
 
 Shubenacadie is one of the early stops after 
 leaving Halifax. Naturally one looks forward 
 with anticipation to meeting a place with such 
 a name. But what is in a name? Certainly 
 nothing so far as the actual village of that dis- 
 tinguished appellation is concerned. 
 
 Shubenacadie! "abounding in ground-nuts'* 
 — and also in Micmac Indians. The Shuben- 
 acadie of our imaginations continued to abound 
 in these things ; but Shubenacadie the actual, 
 
 147 
 
 ii 
 
11 <1. 
 
 Ij (! ■ J- 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 alas ! contained its whole stock of romance in 
 its name. If it had ground-nuts, it did not 
 show them to us, nor did it bring forth any 
 Indians. 
 
 Truro was as disappointing as Shubenacadie, 
 for the maps placed it at the head of Cobe- 
 quid Bay, the extreme eastern end of Minas 
 Basin, and it was but natural that we should 
 expect to see the waters of Fundy there once 
 more. Not so. Truro is two miles from the 
 bay, a bustling, manufacturing town of no at- 
 tractions, but with a great deal of smoke and 
 noise. 
 
 A few miles away, however, is Maitland, near 
 the mouth of the Shubenacadie River, — a 
 famous spot, we were assured, for the highest 
 of high tides, rips, and bores. This might be 
 so, — we hoped it was, — but we did not go to 
 see. We nad pursued rips and bores to the 
 limits of human endurance, and if they were 
 at Maitland — well, we sincerely hoped they 
 would stay there. 
 
 Out of Truro we left the desolate waste of 
 stunted firs and loose stones and went speed- 
 ing along "he shores of a river with bright red 
 
 banks, where maples, oaks, and birches mingled 
 
 148 
 
 -^"\ 
 
'Toward Cai)e Breton 
 
 I 
 
 with the dark evergreens. The way grew 
 wilder, and we had the exhilarating feeling that 
 at last we were getting away from the beaten 
 track of the tourist. 
 
 Great beds of tilted and folded rock strata 
 rose above the train ; all sorts of geological 
 ft mations thrust themselves into our notice. 
 The rocks here are not concealed and covered 
 jealously from the inquisitive eye, as they are 
 on most of the surface of the earth, but they 
 stand forth to be looked at. 
 
 Even in the swift passing of the train we 
 saw enough to make us bow before the mighty 
 forces of fire and ice that so wonderfully had 
 rolled up the rocks like scrolls to be read, bent 
 the strata of stone as though they had been 
 of parchment, and opened the secret places, 
 scooping out valleys here and burying moun- 
 tains there. 
 
 Then about us the hills rose, — hills of stone, 
 also the work of the colossal forces that yet 
 slumber in the heart of the earth. Time had 
 covered these hills with soil and verdure, how- 
 ever ; and they stood above and about one 
 another in fine groupings, their noble slopes 
 exquisitely coloured with golden-rod and pearly 
 
 149 
 
 ■ f 
 
 1(1 
 
 Jl 
 
 
 I 
 
 ' 
 
 'if 
 
u.m' 
 
 !f i I 
 
 ■r' r . 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 everlasting, and where uncut they were over- 
 grown with silvery, tawny grass. 
 
 One expected to see sheep scampering over 
 the near hills as the train approached and un- 
 concernedly nibbling on the distant ones, but 
 this was not the case. Only here and there a 
 woolly brother or two or three were to be seen 
 upon these exquisite flower-painted heights. 
 
 Acres of fireweed had taken possession of 
 the burned tracts along the side of the rail- 
 road, mercifully covering the naked and scarred 
 earth, as is their habit, their long pods curling 
 open in a charming tracery of brown lines and 
 freeing glistening clouds of silky white plumed 
 seeds, to fly on the wind and find out other 
 sore spots that needed their redeeming presence. 
 The earth was not greatly harassed by culti- 
 vation ; grass grew freely, making now a tawny 
 background to the coloured patterns of golden- 
 rod, asters, and everlasting. 
 
 The little village of Hopewell lies among 
 the hills 'n the happiest manner, in apparent 
 realisation of the wish expressed in its name. 
 Its houses are vine-covered, as hope-well houses 
 ought to be, and there are flowers to profusion 
 in the dooryards, — real Digby flowers. 
 
 150 
 
'Toward Cape Breton 
 
 We had undoubtedly entered a new world. 
 The depressing sense of commonplaceness had 
 disappeared ; life began to be again original and 
 beautiful. The houses were picturesque, and 
 so were the well-sweeps that stood against the 
 sky. 
 
 There appeared distant blue highlands 
 beyond the foreground of tawny hillsides. 
 Autumn tints were beginning to soften the 
 woods on all sides ; and a long irregular lake 
 sparkled down below us, with curving shores 
 and fairy-like islands on its blue bosom, the 
 whole enveloped in a haze like that which 
 comes in Indian summer. 
 
 The country began to look unfamiliar and 
 a little foreign. The brakeman's name was 
 Sandy, and when he called out West Bemigo- 
 mish^ with the accent on the last syllable, 
 and with a Scotch flavour difficult to transmit, 
 we knew we had passed beyond the petty cares 
 of a vapid civilisation and were indeed nearing 
 those dangerous mountain passes, those marshes 
 and Scotch highlands of which we had heard 
 and long had dreamed. 
 
 We sped past more rounded hills, often 
 shaven and shorn of their hay, and often lovely 
 
 151 
 
 ! 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 
 \ \\ 
 
 m 
 
 . II 
 
 r 
 
 I \ 
 
 ^s^ 
 
 njtil 
 
 
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!. . 
 
 ;i' i -t 
 
 ?>■' 
 
 « u < 
 
 % 
 
 n ' 
 
 i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 with their fleecy uncut grass exquisitely inter- 
 mingled with golden-rod, aster, and ever- 
 lasting. 
 
 " Merigoww^ / " Sandy's pleasant, sonorous 
 voice announced the getting-oiF place for the 
 village which is not in sight, hut which we hope 
 is as attractive as its name, lying as it does at 
 the mouth of the deep-blue bay that comes 
 close enough for us to admire. 
 
 MerigowwA.' One should hear Sandy an- 
 nounce this, to get an idea of what the word 
 can contain of joyousness and jollity. It rings 
 out the merriest of any towns' names I ever 
 heard; and if Merigo^/j>^ is half as agreeable 
 as the sound of its name as delivered by Sandy 
 the brakeman, I for one should like to live 
 there. 
 
 Beyond Merigomish the mountains rise close 
 at hand. They are not p^rand or terrifying, but 
 they ascend with an ample serenity that is 
 restful. They are wooded for the most part 
 with spruces and firs, lightened, however, by ex- 
 panses of bright-green deciduous trees. One 
 needs evergreens to bring out the quality of 
 the lighter greens, and also by their severity of 
 form to give character to the nearer hills. In 
 
 152 
 
 i I , 
 
 
Toward Cape Breton 
 
 the distance their shapes are lost, and their dark 
 green makes black masses like deep shadows in 
 the midst of the lighter foliage. 
 
 We left the mountains only to find them 
 again a little farther on. The near farmhouses 
 looked pretty and comfortable, and there was 
 an occasional apple-tree bearing very small 
 apples, as though it knew what was expected 
 of it, and would fulfil its duty as best it could, 
 though its hard-borne fruit was " apple " in 
 form only. 
 
 And then, beyond the mountains, up against 
 the sky, lay distant blue highlands like a dream 
 in their loveliness. 
 
 Nearer to the mountain sped the train, until 
 we found ourselves climbing the side of it and 
 looking across the mist-filled valleys of another 
 mountain, its sides all sheep-coloured or clothed 
 with fir-trees. 
 
 We hastened through a continually chang- 
 ing hill country that raised high our hopes of 
 Cape Breton, for the landscape grew more in- 
 teresting as we went on. 
 
 We left the mountains, and the country 
 settled into a rounded hilliness, always agree- 
 able and always covered with the soft green 
 
 
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 wll n' 
 
 :'(: 
 
 y.-'-a 
 
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 u 
 
 
 ''A 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 \ 
 
 #1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 plush of shorn meadows or the silvery, tawny 
 grass. 
 
 At one place we passed a village lying in the 
 stony bed of an ancient water-course, the little 
 silver stream purling adown its spine being 
 the only remnant of a once mighty torrent 
 that had carved out the valley. Instead of 
 the flood of long ago elm-trees now occupy 
 the dry river-bed. They stood about the 
 houses, fair, foreign forms in this stern land of 
 fir-trees. 
 
 Antigo«/V^.' the accent of all these names 
 ending in nish or mish is on the last syllable. 
 Sandy sings it out powerfully, but it does not 
 dance like the light-hearted Merigomish. 
 
 It is a pleasant enough place, but one might 
 pass it unheeded, did one not know that here 
 dwells the Bishop of Arichat, that here is the 
 St. Francis Xavier College, and here the Cathe- 
 dral of St. Ninian, one of the finest in Canada. 
 Here, too, are large cheese-factories that minis- 
 ter to the temporal needs of the people. Here, 
 moreover, the people are descendants of the 
 Scotch Highlanders who settled these shores 
 in the early part of the century, and here the 
 wild Gaelic speech may yet be heard, the cathe- 
 
 154 
 
 '"V«^'»■l.•^A-lKl<^■.JK•••-'» . 
 

 Spinning 
 
 hi 
 
 m 
 
 .11 
 
 I' 
 iii 
 
 i ( 
 
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L- 
 
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 f'"l! 
 
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 ■= 5: 
 
 1 
 
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 rf 
 
 J 
 
 
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 - 
 
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 [ * 
 
 M' 
 
 I 
 
Toward Cape Breton 
 
 dral services being part of the time conducted 
 in that tongue. Considering all this, it is not 
 surprising that Antigonish is a large settlement. 
 It is said to draw a large part of its revenue 
 from its foggy Newfoundland brethren whom 
 it supplies with cheese and other provisions — 
 at a good profit. 
 
 We stayed only a moment at Antigonish, but 
 sped away and away and past a blue lake at the 
 foot of blue hills. The haymakers were busy 
 on its marshy shores with "he last cutting of 
 the reason, women with turned-up petticoats 
 and bright handkerchiefs over their heads, and 
 men plying the decadent scythe. 
 
 Marshy lakes and low-lying hills, beautiful 
 in the light of a poetic day, made charming 
 this part of the journey, and then of a sudden 
 the sea came into view, deep blue in the hazy 
 atmosphere with distant shores of heavenly 
 colouring. 
 
 Straight poplars and venerable willows 
 greeted us as we entered the Acadian village 
 of Tracadle. Seen in this light, with the en- 
 chanting blues of the distant sea and the near 
 inlets, with the fair shores and the picturesque 
 group of gray-shingled buildings, the monastery 
 
 155 
 
 
 ■H 
 
 I 
 
 if- 
 
 
K( 
 
 Down No7'th and Up Along 
 
 of the Trappist Brothers, Tracadie seemed the 
 fairest of all the fair sights we had seen that 
 day or in many a day. 
 
 It is wonderful what loveliness a certain light 
 can give to the scene upon which it falls. That 
 day of days, with a golden haze in the air that 
 obscured nothing, but lent glow and colour to 
 everything, the hills and towns were enchant- 
 ing, and Tracadie, as we came upon it bathed 
 in the afternoon light, might have been a vision 
 of the Elysian Fields. 
 
 Later the same country was traversed on a 
 dull, dead day when everything looked real, 
 when the landscape lay flat and no golden light 
 and atmospheric life made ethereal the hills and 
 valleys, and Tracadie the beautiful had van- 
 ished ; we could scarcely believe the evidence of 
 the time-table, the name of the station, and 
 Sandy's confirmatory announcement, when we 
 saw Tracadie bereft of her halo. Beautiful 
 delusion of the atmosphere, could one but 
 always travel when sun and air were in loving 
 dalliance. 
 
 The events of individual human life are not 
 very noticeable from the window of a railway 
 train, but one little drama we saw enacted by 
 
 156 
 
>m 
 
 Toward Cape Breton 
 
 the wayside. A tiny cottage stood on a hill- 
 top near the track ; and in the dooryard sat 
 an old man and an old woman, at work upon 
 something, we could not see what. As the 
 train swept past, the old man stood erect and, 
 raising both arms above his head, waved fran- 
 tically. The engine responded with a shrill 
 salute, whereupon the old man bent himself in 
 a profound courtesy almost to the earth. We 
 flew on wondering, and presently Sandy an- 
 nounced " Harbour au Bouche " with a queer 
 Scotch accent to the French name. We were 
 less interested in Harbour au Bouche than in 
 Cape Porcupine, a bold headland higher than 
 Blomidon, and, one should think, worthy of a 
 more dignified title, for while one is willing to 
 allow picturesqueness to a porcupine, no one 
 would think of claiming dignity for that spiny 
 act of nature. Cape Porcupine was outlined 
 against the blue sea, and in a few moments we 
 reached that sea, and also Port Mulgrave, the 
 end of the road. 
 
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 at Cape Breton, the goal of our desire. The 
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 XII 
 BADDECK 
 
 CAPE BRETON ISLAND is the wild 
 and rocky portion of northern Nova 
 Scotia, which seems intended for a 
 bulwark against the northeast storms 
 that come down past Newfoundland, which 
 lies a few miles away from its northern point. 
 
 The island is cleft nearly in two by the sea. 
 Its central portion is a deep valley filled with 
 salt water and affording safe anchorage to ships 
 that come in through the Great Bras d'Or 
 Channel, a narrow arm of the sea making down 
 from the northeast. Parallel to this is another 
 channel, the Little Bras d'Or, through which 
 only the smaller vessels pass. 
 
 Many bays and inlets are given off from the 
 central basin, the southernmost and broadest 
 portion of which is called the Great Bras d'Or 
 Lake, while north of that and partly separated 
 from it by a point of land is the Little Bras 
 d'Or Lake. 
 
 The Bras d'Or lakes and their branches 
 almost cut Cape Breton in two, for St. Peter's 
 
 158 
 
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 Baddeck 
 
 Inlet at the southeast corner of the Great Bras 
 d'Or Lake comes within half a mile of break- 
 ing through the land into the sea at the south. 
 
 What nature did not quite accomplish, man 
 did ; and a ship canal, cut through the isthmus, 
 has divided Cape Breton into two main islands, 
 besides converting the Bras d'Or lakes into 
 a safe water-way for vessels wishing to pass 
 between the north and the south coasts. 
 
 The country of the easternmost island thus 
 formed has a very broken coast and is by far 
 the best known. On its northern coast is 
 Sydney Harbour, said to be one of the finest 
 in the world, only that it is blocked by ice for 
 several months in the year. Near the mouth 
 of the harbour are the coal mines that have 
 made this part of the country profitable and 
 have drawn to it a comparatively large popu- 
 lation. At the head of the harbour is the 
 flourishing town of Sydney, and southeast of 
 that on the coast is the site of the famous town 
 of Louisburg that played so important a part 
 in the wars between France and England. 
 
 Louisburg was built by the French shortly 
 after the Treaty of Utrecht, itc location on a 
 point of land to the south of a fine harbour 
 
 159 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 being admirable for fortification. Stone walls 
 thirty feet high, on which were parapets and 
 towers, and around which was a moat eighty 
 feet wide, protected the town on the land side. 
 On the side toward the sea it was guarded by 
 forts in the harbour. 
 
 This " Dunkirk of America " was a constant 
 menace to the English, and after twice passing 
 into their hands it was finally levelled to the 
 ground by them in 1760, thus relieving them 
 of the expense of maintaining it, and making it 
 impossible for it to become again a rallying 
 point for the enemy. All that now remains of 
 the once proud French capital are a few grass- 
 covered mounds. A little fishing village oc- 
 cupies its site, and Louisburg is but a name 
 and a memory of the past. 
 
 The western coast of Cape Breton has no 
 harbours, and the country is very rugged and 
 mountainous, particularly the northern part. 
 To the west of the Bras d'Or lakes lies the 
 " Margaree country," famous for its salmon- 
 fishing. This side of the island is but thinly 
 populated, particularly the peninsula to the 
 north, which is a plateau surrounded by 
 
 mountains. 
 
 160 
 
Baddeck 
 
 This plateau, which is about eighty miles 
 long, is known to the people of the locality 
 as Cape North, although the Cape North of 
 the maps is a bold headland that stands with 
 its base in the sea at the extreme northern 
 point of the plateau. 
 
 Few people visit this very interesting pe- 
 ninsula. It is not easy to visit, and its attrac- 
 tions as a rule are unknown to the traveller. 
 It is peopled by Scotch Highlanders, and al- 
 though it is traversed by that highest achieve- 
 ment of civilisation, the telegraph, it has not 
 been " civilised " to any great extent. 
 
 Steam-mills and manufactories in the busy 
 world outside have won the people from grind- 
 ing their own oats to buying ready-made oat- 
 meal, and from spinning and weaving all of 
 their own cloth to using more or less of the 
 cheap stuffs sent to them from Halifax ; but 
 on the whole they live very much as they 
 did before steam and electricity metamor- 
 phosed life for so much of the world. 
 
 He who enters Cape Breton by way of Port 
 Hawkesbury, across the Gut of Canso, will 
 very likely be disappointed. He certainly 
 will if he expects to step at once into a 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 region of wild mountains and picturesque 
 Highlanders. 
 
 There are no such things at Port Hawkes- 
 bury ; on the contrary, the country is scrubby 
 and uninteresting, and the Gut of Canso, as 
 one crosses it in a wheezy little steamer, is a 
 disappointing Gut to the tourist, not at all 
 worthy of its uncommon and confident name. 
 Its principal virtue is its depth, — a wholly 
 commercial virtue. 
 
 That it is a deep Gut, however, and has 
 always — since the coming of the white man 
 — been the principal passage for ships sailing 
 between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of 
 St. Lawrence, did not commend it to us. 
 
 Three miles down the coast toward the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence is Port Hastings, equally 
 uninteresting until one discovers that it pos- 
 sesses a historic importance out of all propor- 
 tion to its looks, for here the first Atlantic 
 cable crossed the Gut of Canso. The first 
 transatlantic cable was laid from the coast of 
 Ireland to the east coast of Nev/foundland, 
 over the " telegraphic plateau " that provi- 
 dentially crosses the ocean for its support, and 
 
 in 1858 the first message successfully crossed 
 
 162 
 
^ 
 
 Ni< 
 
 Baddeck 
 
 the sea. This message was transmitted by 
 telegraph and cable from Newfoundland to 
 Aspy Bay on the northern part of Cape 
 Breton Island, and from there telegraphed to 
 Port Hastings. 
 
 Cape Breton Island lies in the line of the 
 shortest distance by sea between Europe and 
 America; and so, remote as it is from the 
 great cities, it was one of the first places to 
 be traversed by telegraph-wires, in order to 
 transfer the cable messages receivede at Aspy 
 Bay. 
 
 From Port Hawkesbury to Sydney there 
 is a railroad which crosses the water at the 
 head of the Great Bras d'Or Lake, where the 
 channel is contracted, and where is situated a 
 small hamlet called Grand Narrows. 
 
 The country between Port Hawkesbury and 
 Grand Narrows is rough and dreary-looking, 
 with much gypsum cropping out white and 
 ghostly in the wilderness. As we approached 
 Grand Narrows, we got cheering glimpses of 
 the blue Bras d'Or, and at the hamlet itself 
 uprising hills and blue water revived our 
 spirits. 
 
 We left the train to continue its course to 
 
 163 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Sydney, for we were not bound that way. 
 Others might go on to prosperous Sydney 
 and historical Louisburg; but as for us, we 
 preferred to step aboard the little steamer 
 ready to puff its way through the shining 
 Bras d'Or waters to Baddeck. 
 
 There is little tide in the Bras d'Or lakes. 
 Their entrance does not receive the waters 
 freely enough to cause them to pile up, as is 
 the case in the Bay of Fundy ; on the con- 
 trary, the force of the rising tide is dissipated 
 before the water gets into this inland sea 
 which lies in its land-bound basin, calm and 
 peaceful. 
 
 The Bras d'Or lakes are pleasant sheets 
 of water with pretty wooded shores, though 
 on the whole the scenery is not remarkable. 
 It is very peaceful and pleasing, however, and 
 there are many lovely coves and points of 
 land along the shore. And there is always 
 the invigorating northern air to fill one with 
 its refreshing life. 
 
 Baddeck lies on the shores of an inlet be- 
 hind a point of land that separates it from 
 the Little Bras d'Or Lake. We found it the 
 
 simple sleepy hamlet we had hoped for. Its 
 
 164 
 
 I 
 
HA 
 
 Baddeck 
 
 one street was unpaved, and Its shops wore 
 a submissive air of having done no business 
 for several generations — with one exception. 
 There is one store of general merchandise of 
 such modern aspect and such activity as to 
 seem wholly out of place in Baddeck. 
 
 But on the whole the village preserved the 
 same Sunday-like serenity that so puzzled the 
 genial author of " Baddeck and that Sort of 
 Thing," since whose visit years enough have 
 passed to revolutionise "American" politics 
 and see the rise and fall of more than one large 
 "American" city, yet there sits Baddeck on 
 thz shore of her Bras d'Or, just as she sat 
 then, excepting that the old jail has made way 
 for a new one. It was explained to us that 
 the last prisoners put in the old one had dug 
 holes in the wall and got out ; to further in- 
 quiry our informant answered apologetically 
 that he did n't think there were any prisoners 
 in the jail now, but added, as though to vin- 
 dicate the honour of the town, that they some- 
 times had one. 
 
 Baddeck is just as good and just as quiet 
 to-day as it ever was, v/ith the exception of 
 its one flourishing store ; and that no doubt is 
 
 165 
 
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 Down North a7id Up Along 
 
 the result of " American " influence, for there 
 is a large house on the point known as Red 
 Head, across the water, and from a tall flag- 
 staff near it floats the stars and stripes. It is 
 the residence of Mr. Alexander G. Bell, the 
 inventor of the Bell telephone ; and some two 
 miles or more up the road to the north are 
 two or three other houses from whose tall flag- 
 staff's floats the emblem of our kind of freedom. 
 In one lives Mr. George Kennan, not beloved 
 by the Czar of Russia, and every summer a 
 greater or less number of citizens from the 
 United States find their way to the cool 
 breezes of Baddeck. 
 
 Yes, there is one other " Improvement" at 
 Baddeck, a brick custom-house and post-office 
 that we at first mistook for the jail. 
 
 There is a curious sense of disjointedness 
 about Baddeck and its surroundings. The 
 houses seem set around anywhere, and the Bras 
 d'Or shares the general sense of confusion. 
 
 The water-view ought to be beautiful, with 
 points of land reaching into the lake, islands 
 in the channel, and between the points of land 
 a broad opening across the main body of water. 
 But there is lacking that necessary something 
 
 i66 
 
Baddeck 
 
 we call " composition;" things are not placed 
 quite right with respect to one another, and 
 the proportions are not good. Such is the im- 
 pression one gets from the village itself, but 
 on the higher land back of the village there 
 are points of view from which Baddeck on the 
 water's edge, with its diversified water-view in 
 the background, is charming indeed. 
 
 Whether Baddeck is old or young depends 
 upon the point of view. In 1793 it had ten 
 white inhabitants, which is ten more than Chi- 
 cago had at the same time. But Chicago had 
 something of an agaric nature which in litde 
 more than half a century has caused it to spring 
 to the ungainly size of over a million, while 
 Baddeck has had a slow and solid growth of 
 nine hundred within a century. 
 
 Baddeck's first inhabitants were disbanded 
 soldiers, and her people now are largely com- 
 posed of the Scotch who have moved to this 
 part of Cape Breton. The names over her 
 shop doors are Rory McLeod, Sandy McLane, 
 Murdoch McPherson, or similar Scotch cog- 
 nomens. The place is largely Presbyterian, 
 though a little building still gathers the people 
 of the Church of England under its wing. 
 
 167 
 
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 Down North and Ui> Alo 
 
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 The Presbyt'jrian Church, large and barn- 
 like, stands on the hill behind the town, and 
 there is still observed the custom of repeating 
 the services in Gaelic, — for the back-country 
 people have not forgotten their mother-tongue ; 
 in fict, many of the old people know no other. 
 
 The difference between Sunday and other 
 days at Baddeck is not observable in the in- 
 creased stillness of the place, — that is not 
 necessary even for Sunday, — but that one can 
 then go to church. One can go to the Pres- 
 byterian church and listen to a Gaelic service, 
 which is what every stranger does. 
 
 Sometimes an English service precedes the 
 Gaelic, which makes the meeting rather long, 
 but sometimes proceedings begin — and end — 
 with a Gaelic prayer-meeting, which was the 
 case the day we went. 
 
 The congregation, composed mainly of 
 elderly and unlettered back-country folk, con- 
 tained few young people and fewer children. 
 The leader, who was not unlettered and who 
 had a fine voice, opened the meeting by reading 
 in Gaelic. Then gaunt men rose and prayed, 
 standing perfectly still and betraying no emo- 
 tion in voice or by gesture. They spoke in 
 
 i68 
 
 r*. i 
 
Baddeck 
 
 low mumbling tones that to us soon became a 
 monotonous drone of unfamiliar sounds. 
 
 One by one they got up and prayed and sat 
 down, until we began to weary exceedingly 
 from sitting still so long on the hard wooden 
 seats, and were inconsistently thankful for 
 the law which excludes women from also 
 taking part in public services. Fortunately 
 the praying was interspersed by singing, which 
 caused us for the time to forget weariness 
 and to become lost in wonder, if not in 
 admiration. 
 
 The leader sang metrical Psalms in a voice 
 that was not without dignity and music; the 
 melody was entirely unknown to us, and at a 
 curious up-slide at the end of each phrase, the 
 congregation joined in a chorus difficult to de- 
 scribe. There came a deep crash and burr of 
 male voices, embroidered, so to speak, by the 
 most astonishing and unrelated high soprano 
 embellishments from the women. It was 
 amazing, unexpectedly and finely barbaric, re- 
 taining a strong flavour of vanished centuries 
 when all the wild northern hordes struggled 
 for supremacy, and when the inspiration to 
 their music was the crashing of waves on the 
 
 169 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 wild coast, the shrieking of the tempest, and 
 the cries of war. We both thought of wind 
 and water surging about a rocky coast as we 
 listened, and there was also a suggestion of the 
 droning of bagpipes in the male voices. 
 
 When the services finally ended, the collec- 
 tion was taken, and it amounted to only a few 
 large copper pennies. 
 
 There were Indians at Baddeck. They 
 come in the summer as to a watering-place, for 
 change and recreation and to glean an occa- 
 sional penny from the " American " visitors, 
 and to sell baskets of their own manufacture 
 to whoever is in need of baskets. Their en- 
 campment was on a steep hillside on the edge 
 of the village. It consisted of half-a-dozen 
 wigwams covered with birch-bark and shaped 
 very much like the pointed firs that surrounded 
 them. 
 
 Thin columns of blue smoke were rising 
 from two or three camp-fires one morning as 
 we drew near, and we saw an iron pot hung 
 over each fire by a cord from two sticks set up 
 cross-wise. Here was genuine Indian at last ! 
 but not unmarred by contact with the dominant 
 race, after all, — for they were unbecomingly 
 
 170 
 
 ... 4 
 
Baddeck 
 
 clad in the cast-ofF clothing of their white 
 neighbours. 
 
 The romance of Micmac Indian life is very 
 greatly enhanced by distance. They live al- 
 most as simply as wild animals, but they are 
 not nearly as clean. Why is it one never 
 sees a dirty squirrel and never a clean Indian ? 
 Unless, indeed, both have the misfortune to 
 be captured by civilised man, when the method 
 of their lives may become reversed, and the 
 squirrel through vile captivity grows dirty, 
 while the Indian becomes clean through en- 
 forced scrubbing by the Government. 
 
 There was a white child in this camp, a little 
 girl of seven or eight, and the wildest-eyed child 
 we ever had seen. She was dirty like the rest, 
 and at our approach fled as though the bad 
 spirit were after her. We saw her later caress- 
 ing a fat squaw, who vigorously elbowed her 
 away. We learned her story, which was not a 
 pleasant one, her own mother having given her 
 to the Indians. Poor baby, with her bright yel- 
 low hair, and her skin gleaming white in spite of 
 the dirt, what is to be her fate, brought up like 
 a little animal in the midst of a race whose 
 every impulse is opposed to her own ? 
 
 171 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Besides a number of Indian children, there 
 were little dogs about the camp, as miserable- 
 looking as starved little dogs could be, and 
 there was a kitten with a woolly coat like a 
 sheep. It was a desperate-looking kitten, and 
 who can tell whether its woolly coat was due 
 to the vermin that certainly infested it, or to 
 some un-catlike, and ghoulish foreknowledge 
 such as is said to be possessed by potato-skins, 
 corn-husks, and gophers, of a hard winter which 
 must be prepared for. 
 
 As we receded from the camp, the pointed 
 wigwams shining white and tawny with their 
 covering of birch-bark, the blue lines of smoke 
 wavering up to the sky, the moving forms 
 of children, made a picture pleasant to look 
 upon. 
 
 173 
 
m 
 
 XIII 
 ENGLISKTOWN 
 
 WE did not go to Baddeck wholly 
 for Baddeck's sake, but as well to 
 make it a starting-point for the 
 plateau to the north which we meant 
 to traverse, roads permitting, all the way to the 
 fcold headland that fronts the icy sea and ends 
 the land in this direction. 
 
 The people there are Scotch Highlanders of 
 good repute, they having succeeded an older 
 population of bad fame and piratical habits. 
 
 Cape North and its Highland fisher-folk had 
 been recommended to us at Parrsboro by Mr. 
 Gibbons, a unique and beautiful character, pas- 
 tor of the Church of England, and lovingly 
 called by his people "Parson Gibbons." He 
 is the only person of Esquimaux blood, so far 
 as we know, who has made a name for himself. 
 He wore an expression of great sweetness 
 and earnestness, and was a man of so much 
 education and culture that it was a pleasure to 
 listen to him. His indomitable courage had 
 
 173 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 enabled him to surmount all obstacles and take 
 his place in the field of work he had chosen 
 and in the society that his education had fitted 
 him iox. 
 
 He had ministered iox a number of years to 
 the people of Cape North, as no one had done 
 before, and as no one has done since. He 
 loved them, that we could see, as in his sym- 
 pathetic way he told us of them, of their hard 
 lives, their idiosyncrasies and their virtues, and 
 although he had a quick sense of humour there 
 was ever love shining back of his laughter. 
 He mapped out the route for us from Bad- 
 deck to the extreme end of Cape North, and 
 told us where and with whom to stay along the 
 road. 
 
 At Baddeck, we learned much of Parson 
 Gibbons' work, how he had gone once a month 
 the whole length of Cape North, often walking 
 the distance of one hundred miles over moun- 
 tains and through swamps. More than once 
 he had stumbled into a friend's house, on his 
 return from the north, quite exhausted and 
 with blood-stained shoes. 
 
 No other name is so well known and so 
 loved on that rude coast, as we were soon to 
 
 174 
 
 I, 
 
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 Knglishtown 
 
 learn, for even the faces of the children that had 
 been born since he left lighted when we spoke 
 of him. His memory is handed down to the 
 younger generations ; and all, old and young 
 alike, when we were there, fondly believed that 
 he would some day return to them. But that 
 he will not do, for since this book was begun 
 the brave and gentle spirit has passed from its 
 mortal toil. His death was the result of in- 
 juries received when stopping a pair of runa- 
 way horses, saving the lives of those in the 
 carriage. 
 
 At one end of the village of Baddeck stands 
 a little church of unique appearance, which is 
 one of eight in different parts of Cape Breton 
 and Nova Scotia which the great courage and 
 perseverance of Parson Gibbons had built, 
 some of them in places where another would 
 have seen no possibility of erecting so much as 
 a shed. 
 
 We were obliged to remain in Baddeck for 
 several days, partly on account of the weather, 
 and partly to make the necessary preparations 
 for the peculiar journey we had undertaken. 
 
 One cannot start into the wilderness without 
 forethought, and we had received such contra- 
 
 175 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 dictory information concerning the resources 
 for travellers " down north " that we determined 
 to take with us the necessaries of life. In 
 other words, we were to become a pair of 
 gypsies for a couple of weeks. 
 
 Of course we had to drive, and for this a 
 horse and waggon were necessary. A waggon 
 in which one must take a long journey is good 
 or bad according to the nature of its seat. 
 Only those who have tried know how few 
 vehicles have seats that are not a mortification 
 to the spirit of man after he has sat upon them 
 for three consecutive hours. Now, to select a 
 waggon solely for the comfort of its seat may 
 produce peculiar results. It did in our case. 
 We desired to present as respectable an ap- 
 pearance upon this somewhat Quixotic journey 
 as circumstances permitted, but circumstances 
 did not permit of anything better than a small 
 and topless vehicle very much the worse for 
 wear, and with what paint still remained worn 
 to a dull and ashy gray. But it was strong 
 and had a comfortable seat. 
 
 It had to be built up in the back to accom- 
 modate our load ; and as the addition was made 
 
 with new boards which there was no time to 
 
 176 
 
Rnglishtown 
 
 have painted, the result was not quite what we 
 should have been willing to exhibit to some of 
 our — happily distant — friends and relatives. 
 But the people of Cape Breton are not criti- 
 cal; and as a good many of them do their 
 own walking, our outfit was regarded beyond 
 the town with envy and as an indication of very 
 great wealth and pride. 
 
 Quite as important as the waggon was the 
 horse ; and Mr. A., genial landlord of the new 
 Bras d'Or hotel, introduced Dan to as as the 
 one horse in all Baddeck or in all the world 
 suited to our needs. 
 
 Dan was a rather small chestnut with a white 
 star in his forehead ; he had a straight neck, a 
 tender mouth, a somewhat mincing gait, and 
 he was a little stiff in the legs upon first starting 
 out. He hated to back and he had a nervous 
 fear of the whip. But to offset all this he had 
 a large kind eye and as true a heart as ever 
 beat in the breast of a horse. 
 
 Appearances were certainly against the dear 
 old fellow, and we remember with regret that we 
 rejected him after a short trial drive. But Mr. 
 A. assured us so impressively that Dan was 
 willing to cross ferries that fortunately for us 
 
 177 
 
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 we finally took him, though we did it under 
 protest. We could not then understand why 
 willingness to cross ferries should count so 
 mightily in his favour. Our very narrow- 
 minded idea of a " ferry," based upon those by 
 which one enters or leaves New York City, was 
 to become broadened to an extent we did not 
 dream of then. 
 
 " Down North " is applicable to any journey 
 northward from the southernmost point of 
 Nova Scotia. " Up along," like the same 
 term on Cape Cod, is used of travelling along 
 the edge of the land, that long strip by the 
 sea which in both Cape Cod and Cape North 
 is the portion most generally inhabited. So 
 when we left Baddeck — or perhaps better, left 
 Englishtown — we might technically be said to 
 be going " up along." 
 
 A clear, cool morning dawned about the 
 middle of September. The waggon was ready ; 
 and Dan, shining from a most unusual polishing, 
 the last grooming he was likely to get until he 
 returned to his own stable, with a strong 
 harness on his back and new shoes on his feet, 
 v/aited our pleasure. 
 
 Into the back of the waggon were packed a 
 
 178 
 
Rnglishtown 
 
 few necessary personal effects and also sundry 
 culinary articles of iron or tin and a quantity of 
 provisions. A white canvas cloth, attached to 
 the seat, was drawn tightly over the load at the 
 back, steadying and holding it in place, and 
 incidentally giving it the effect of a peddler's 
 pack or an emigrant's outfit. Mr. A. gener- 
 ously tied his own fishing-rod to the back of 
 the seat with our umbrellas, over which were 
 thrown the bright new Halifax rugs that must 
 have felt a little indignant at the figure they 
 were made to cut. M.'s sketching materials 
 stood against the dashboard, and under our 
 feet, to her dismay, was a tin can of worms 
 which the stable boy at the last moment con- 
 tributed for bait, also a wrench, and a bottle 
 of oil to grease the wheels. 
 
 As there was no room for it inside, Mr. A. 
 had dexterously with a long rope tied a bushel 
 of oats and " cut feed " in a bag to the back 
 springs, not improving their action thereby, but 
 adding materially to the general emigrant effect. 
 
 We finally started, moving down the main 
 street of Baddeck with what dignity circum- 
 stances permitted, while the Sandys, Rorys, and 
 Murdochs stood at the doors of the moribund 
 
 179 
 
 id 
 
 
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 It ' ' 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 shops with their hands in their pockets, and 
 looked on, speechless, smileless, and respectful. 
 
 In a few moments we were out of town, 
 facing expectantly toward Cape North, that 
 mysterious headland a hundred miles away, the 
 road to which was said to be wild and lonely, 
 obstructed by mountains and marshes, and 
 traversed by an occasional Highlander. Be- 
 tween us and these perils we had only Dan, 
 with his new shoes, his strong harness, and his 
 kind eye. 
 
 We jogged along the road to the northwest, 
 following an arm of the Bras d'Or that makes 
 up there and is known as Baddeck Bay. 
 
 We passed the cottages of the stars and stripes 
 and bade adieu to them as though they had been 
 our friends. 
 
 Miles of wild fir forest succeeded to the blue 
 
 shine of the bay. Moss bearded the trees and 
 
 carpeted the bankti ; pretty snowberry vines 
 
 strayed over the moss. Innumerable bridges 
 
 intercepted our way, and they were all out of 
 
 repair. Under some scurried brooks, while 
 
 others seemed their own excuse for being, as 
 
 there was no water under them and no sign 
 
 that there ever had been. 
 
 180 
 
Englishtown 
 
 It was at these bridges that Dan's virtues as 
 a highland traveller began to shine forth. If 
 his foot went through a hole, he pulled it out 
 and like a philosopher scorned to notice trifles. 
 He had a way of smelling of suspicious bridges ; 
 and if they exhaled no odour of security, he 
 gathered himself together and jumped over 
 them, the waggon and its occupants following, 
 not as they would, but as they must. 
 
 Besides the many little bridges that Dan could 
 jump, there were longer ones that no horse could 
 have jumped, and beneath them and along the 
 side of the road through reaches of fir-trees 
 dashed and tumbled and glided the wildest, 
 loveliest brooks we ever had dreamed of. 
 
 We went slowly along, enjoying the lovely 
 road and the bewitching brooks until we found 
 ourselves hungry. Then we stopped and had 
 our first gypsy meal by the roadside. We 
 built a fire of dry twigs on a pile of stones near 
 a brook in a meadow where the fence was down, 
 and felt very wild and gypsy-like. True gyp- 
 sies would have done better, however. The 
 smoke blew all ways at once, and the kettle 
 insisted upon lying upon its side and pouring 
 the water into the fire. 
 
 i8i 
 
 \\ 
 
 it 
 
 I' 
 
 : \ 
 
 q 
 
 m 
 
 i 1 1 
 
 lljj 
 
~^f! 
 
 r-ti- 
 
 Down Norih and Up Along 
 
 We took Dan from the waggon ; and since we 
 had forgotten to bring a halter we led him into 
 the field and bribed him by a pile of oats and 
 cut feed to stand still. He stood and ate the 
 feed, the grass beneath it, and the earth beneath 
 that, while we returned to the unequal contest 
 with the fire and forgot all about him until a 
 peculiar shufHing noise brought our heads out 
 of the smoke and fastened our startled gaze 
 upon him, not as we had left him, but upside- 
 down, his new shoes sparkling to the sky and 
 his harness writhing about him. 
 
 He was without doubt the happiest horse in 
 Cape Breton at that moment, but at our indig- 
 nant approach he righted hiiiiself in haste and 
 looked deprecatingly at us out of his large kind 
 eyes. 
 
 Dinner was forgotten in the puzzling occu- 
 pation of getting him to rights, and he was 
 bribed with another supply of feed to stand up. 
 It was the middle of the afternoon before we 
 sat down to our hard-earned meal, and all we 
 succeeded in cooking after a long and bitter 
 fight with our first camp fire was a pot of coffee. 
 Still, it paid, as any gypsy will understand. 
 
 Having attached Dan to the waggon with an 
 
 182 
 
 .s. 
 
Rnglishtown 
 
 optimistic trust in the goodness of misplaced 
 straps, we went on through another stretch of 
 fir woods smothered in brittle sage-green moss. 
 Then a clearing appeared, and we passed some- 
 body's potato patch where large crows were 
 pompously stealing potatoes. They cawed in 
 loud tones as we drew nearer, and went on 
 coolly digging up their neighbour's tubers. 
 They poked their stout beaks into a hill and 
 hauled forth a potato with an unerring aim 
 that suggested previous practice. 
 
 Besides the crows the woods were full of 
 robins. Such wild robins ! They were in 
 flocks and screamed at us and showed none of 
 the amiable characteristics of the red-breasts of 
 civilisation. 
 
 There were squirrels along the lovely high- 
 way, — tiny fellows with rusty red coats and 
 bushy tails, that scolded us roundly, though we 
 were not conscious of deserving it. 
 
 We climbed a long, circuitous, fir-covered, 
 brook-bordered hill, at the top of which a 
 noble view of St. Anne's Bay burst upon us. 
 From a calm sheet of blue water, mountains 
 rose in brooding beauty, stretching away ?.nd 
 away along the sea-coast to the distant blue 
 
 183 
 
 11 
 
 ! 1 ' 
 
 ; I 
 
 % 
 
 ,J.,: 
 
 1 1 >-• 
 
 ;f.' 
 
 \\>i\i 
 J K 
 
¥'' 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 headland which was far-famed Smoky, or Cape 
 Enfume, as the French called It long ago, be- 
 cause of the crown of mist it usually wears. 
 
 The contour of the mountains opposite 
 Englishtown is peculiarly beautiful, the lines 
 of the spurs as they overlap each other are 
 fine, and the ever-changing yet eternal moun- 
 tains of beauty are repeated in reflections on 
 the water below. 
 
 We know no lovelier spot than English- 
 town, lying on the lower swells of elevations 
 that rise almost as high as do the mountains 
 across the bay. 
 
 Englishtown is enveloped in a mantle of 
 romance besides that of her beautiful moun- 
 tains and bay. One is astonished to know 
 how old the place is, and that St. Anne Bay 
 wa3 an important and stirring fishing port 
 contended for by both French and English 
 when New York City was still a quiet Dutch 
 burg. Indeed, the first settlements there ante- 
 date the founding of Port Royal. But St. Anne's 
 history is full of vicissitudes; and though re- 
 peatedly settled by the French and English 
 alternately, no permanent village of any size 
 
 or importance has as yet been founded there. 
 
 184 
 
1 
 
 M 
 
 iglish 
 size 
 
 tere. 
 
 i: ;|i lit' 
 
 ■am i 
 
 o 
 
 h 
 uj 
 
 OQ 
 
 a. 
 
 O 
 V3 
 
 
 <l 
 
m 
 
 I 
 
 ^#f 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 k\ 
 
 V ' ' ' 
 
 If 'S 
 
 7--r 
 
 1 ' >i^ 
 
 If 
 
 
 "'f';r| ' 
 
 ■' ;i,l| 
 
 ♦Jk' 
 
Englishtown 
 
 In 1597 the English ship " Chancewell " came 
 to grief in the usually safe harbour and was 
 wickedly pillaged by the French fishermen 
 settled along the coast. Captain Leigh, com- 
 mander of the " Chancewell," tells us that 
 " there came aboard many shallops with great 
 store of Frenchmen, who robbed and spoiled all 
 they could lay their hands on, pillaging the poor 
 men even to their very shirts, and using them 
 in savage manner ; whereas they should rather 
 as Christians have aided them in their distress." 
 
 In 1629, two armed ships of France, the 
 "Great St. Andrew" and the " Marguerite," 
 occupied the harbour, and their crews, aided 
 by their English prisoners, built a fort to com- 
 mand the entrance. This fort was armed with 
 eight cannon, 1800 pounds of powder, pikes, 
 and muskets, and was garrisoned by forty 
 men. The arms of France and of Cardinal 
 Richelieu were raised over its walls, and a 
 chapel was erected. But before the close of 
 the winter, disaster thinned the ranks of the 
 garrison ; more than a third of the troops died 
 of scurvy, and to add to the confusion the 
 commandant assassinated his lieutenant on the 
 parade-ground. Later, an Indian mission was 
 
 185 
 
 I 
 
! 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 foutulcil Ikmv hy I'^triuh Jesuits, hut prosper- 
 ity did not attend tlusc cHorts, and soon lioth 
 garrison and mission were rcniovcil. 
 
 In a French Iwok, written l)y 'I'hoinas 
 Pinclion and translateil into l\nglisli in 1760, 
 we get a very good ilescription of St. Anne, 
 or lV)rt Dauphin, us it was then called. 
 
 " Port Dauphin is a very fine harhiiur, two Icapnes 
 in circumference. It is almost entirely shut up hy a 
 nock of land, which leaves only a passage for one 
 vessel at a time. The ships can hardly perceive the 
 least motion of the winds, the grounds, that surround 
 it on all sides, heing of so great a height ; hesides, 
 they approach the shore as near as they please with- 
 out danger, and the harhour is capable of admitting 
 vessels even of four hundred ton. The bay is capa- 
 cious enough to contain a thousand [vessels]. Be- 
 fore it is the great Bay of St. Anne, covered to the 
 southeast by the two islands of Ciboux and Cape 
 Dauphin. , . . The strand of Port Dauphin is of 
 greater extent than that of any other harbour in the 
 island ; and notwithstanding that there is plenty of 
 codfish, yet this is not the only advantage of the 
 place; the neighbourhood of Labrador [the Bras d'Or 
 lakes were then called Labrador] and Niganiche [Ingo- 
 nish] renders it easy for the inhabitants and the sav- 
 ages to assemble upon necessary occasions. 
 
 186 
 
Rnglishtown 
 
 "The vessels employed in the fishery at Nij^anirhc 
 arc obliged hy the king's ordinance to retire to Port 
 Dauphin toward the fifteenth of August, because of 
 the storms that rage; in that season. When they 
 have got into those harbours, they expose the cod- 
 fish on shore, where nature seems to have made a 
 bed for that pinpose. Sometimes you sec a hundred 
 and fifty boats employed in this business." 
 
 It seems that the French were for some 
 time imdecidcd as to wliether the citadel of 
 Louishurg should l)e built at Port Dauphin 
 or on " luiglish Harbour," as Louisburg har- 
 bour was then called. Port Dauphin was 
 more impregnable but less convenient, and 
 was finally rejected. 
 
 St. Anne Bay is another inlet like those two 
 long "arms of gold" that give entrance to the 
 Bras d'Or lakes. It lies nearly parallel with 
 them, but does not reach more than ten or 
 twelve miles into the land, because of the 
 watershed which keeps it from forming an- 
 other arm to the Bras d'Or lakes. 
 
 It was an easy matter to sail from the east- 
 ern harbours around to St. Anne; und when 
 there was any fighting going on, St. Anne 
 seems never to have been left out. 
 
 187 
 
 
 
 I • 
 
 i! 
 
 i\ 
 
U" 
 
 ; * ,1 
 
 I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 In 1754 the English came around In one of 
 their war-ships, a part of Commodore War- 
 ren's fleet then blockading Louisburg, and 
 destroyed all the French settlements on St. 
 Anne's Bay. 
 
 Toward the end of the eighteenth century 
 there was a remarkable influx of Scotch High- 
 landers to Cape Breton and at the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century ship-load after ship-load 
 was landed on that island. It is estimated that 
 between 1802 and 1828 some 25,000 of these 
 people poured into Cape Breton. They were 
 turned out of their homes in Scotland to make 
 way for sheep-raising, that having been found 
 more profitable than the rents of the miserable 
 tenantry. The refugees sought the new high- 
 lands of a more friendly world, where landlords 
 were not, and thus St. Anne and the whole of 
 Cape North came to have its present indus- 
 trious and temperate population. 
 
 On the end of the narrow spit of land that 
 closes the harbour to the storms and allows only 
 one ship at a time to pass, a light-house now 
 stands, and another shines over the sea from 
 one of the Ciboux Islands. 
 
 Englishtown, too, is the proud birthplace of 
 
 188 
 
} i 
 
 of 
 
 lus- 
 
 Eng/ishtown 
 
 a great man, for here first saw the light Angus 
 McCaskell, the giant, concerning whose life we 
 know only what has been told us by the genial 
 and learned author of " Baddeck and that Sort 
 of Thing," who ends his description of the 
 great man with the exclamation, " Alas ! he has 
 passed away, leaving little influence except a 
 good example of growth, and a grave which is 
 a new promontory on that ragged coast swept 
 by the winds of the untamed Atit*rtic." 
 
 We regret to say we did not visit his grave 
 nor his shoes nor sit in his chair ; we were so 
 overcome by the unexpected beauty of bay and 
 mountain that we forgot all about the storied 
 dead until it was too late and we had crossed 
 Torquil McLane's ferry not to return. 
 
 We entered Englishtown in the same lei- 
 surely way we had approached it. It consists 
 of half a dozen or more houses placed not too 
 close together along the road, and we were in 
 search of a "long low house with a black roof 
 standing on a hillside." Here lived Sandy 
 McLeod and his family, and here we hoped to 
 spend the night. Sandy himself was not at 
 home, nor yet Mrs. Sandy, but bonnie Annie 
 was. To let us in, she opened the bars that 
 
 189 
 
 I 
 
 
 ii 
 
 ■ 4. 
 
 ! 
 
I 
 
 \ .' 
 
 ' ll 
 
 .K-l 
 
 U i i 
 
 I i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 closed the gateway to the meadow at the 
 farther end of which the house stood, and 
 undertook the offices of hospitality in her 
 mother's absence. Her mother had gone on 
 the mountains for blueberries, which was good 
 news to hungry travellers. 
 
 As there was no one at home but Annie and 
 a little boy, we, with a confidence partly as- 
 sumed, undertook the deliverance of Dan. 
 
 A " collar and hames " is a remarkable in- 
 vention not commonly used on a single horse 
 excepting for heavy work, but it formed a part 
 of our strong harness. The hames is within 
 the comprehension of the average intellect, for 
 it unbuckles and comes off, but the collar does 
 not ; it does not open, and is smaller than the 
 horse's head by any ordinary method of meas- 
 urements. We had exhausted mathematics 
 and the patient Dan's forbearance ; the sunset 
 flamed and waned unseen before the inspiration 
 seized us to turn it around, then, presto ! it 
 was the shape of his head, and off it came. 
 
 Dan's tortured ears and head being finally 
 released, to our infinite relief and his, we min- 
 istered to his comfort as well as we could in 
 
 the gathering darkness, then went to the house, 
 
 190 
 
 
 UJ 
 
 ^»« 
 
1 
 
 Englishto 
 
 wn 
 
 whence proceeded an appetising odour of cook- 
 ing clams. This was a sorrowful delusion, 
 however, as it proceeded from a kettle of " rock- 
 weed" Annie was boiling for the pigs. 
 
 The mother came with a pail of fresh blue- 
 berries and bade us a cordial welcome, and we 
 made a hearty supper of bread and milk, and 
 blueberries sweetened with brown sugar, our 
 appetites quickened by the day out of doors 
 and the odour of steaming rockweed. 
 
 After a night of such sleep as comes only to 
 those who have spent the day in the open air, 
 we wakened to a morning of splendour. 
 
 A neighbour "tackled" Dan for us, making 
 no comments upon the state of his rigging, un- 
 tangling and putting all to rights and making 
 our stanch little craft again seaworthy, with the 
 deftness of a sailor. 
 
 This handy son of Neptune also mended 
 the holes the rope had worn in the feed-bag, 
 for a fine stream of Dan's precious provender 
 issued from each of a number of holes at every 
 motion, and we know not how far we had left 
 this sign of our passing along the lonely road. 
 
 Meantime we talked to the pretty boy who 
 is heir to the McLeod estate, and learned that 
 
 191 
 
 i 
 
 > 'i i. 
 
 
 \<, 
 
 'I 
 
m^X^ 
 
 If if 
 
 i 
 
 iff 
 
 I* s 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 he was six, that he did not go to school, 
 though he earnestly assured us in the dialect 
 of Cape North, " If I will be seven, then I 
 might go," meaning that when he had attained 
 that mature age he would go. 
 
 It 
 
 It 
 
 f. 
 
 
 \ 
 
 192 
 
 s i 
 
XIV 
 FRENCH RIVER 
 
 TORQUIL McLANE'S ferry is the 
 notable instrument by means of which 
 the traveller can find his way out of 
 Englishtown to ^he north. 
 Englishtown lies opposir he narrowest part 
 of St. Anne, which here f be about a mile 
 wide, but that providential tongue of land 
 must not be forgotten which separates the 
 inner harbour from the outer bay, leaving only 
 "a passage for one vessel at a time," and 
 making of it a safe refuge in time of war. 
 
 Although not at present of military impor- 
 tance, the tongue of land still answers a very 
 good purpose in shortening the labours of 
 Torquil, the ferryman, who is a man of note 
 all over Cape North, and, for that matter, 
 much farther. For whoever writes an article 
 or even a letter about this part of the country, 
 never fails to adorn the same with the pictur- 
 esque name of Torquil McLane, the English- 
 town ferryman. 
 
 '' 193 
 
 -t 
 
 ii^ 
 
 :! 
 
I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Torquil must be pronounced " turkle," and 
 Cape Breton on the spot must be called Cape 
 " Britton." It is supposed by some that the 
 island got its name from the Basque sailors who 
 came to these shores from Cape Breton near 
 Bayonne, in very early times. Be that as it 
 may, the Basque sailors are no longer there to 
 see justice done their mother tongue, and Cape 
 " Britton " it is in the mouths of these former 
 subjects of the British Empire. 
 
 Torquil McLane's ferry was quite as pic- 
 turesque as Torquil himself, and resembled 
 nothing so little as our narrow-minded ideas 
 of a " ferry." To see it was to understand 
 and sympathise with Mr. A.'s concern that we 
 should have a horse willing to cross it ! 
 
 It had no landing whatever other than the 
 pebbly beach provided by nature. The ferry- 
 boat resembled a retired dory, grown broad 
 and flat-bottomed with increase of years. We 
 reached this promising form of transportation 
 by pitching down a stony embankment upon 
 a stony beach. 
 
 Torquil was waiting for us, for had he not 
 seen us enter town the night before, and did 
 he not hope and trust that we should be cross- 
 
 194 
 
French River 
 
 e 
 
 )n 
 >n 
 
 ing his ferry In the morning? He was a tall, 
 spare Highlander, and he surveyed us with his 
 shrewd Scotch eyes, and in a deep voice in- 
 quired, after the manner of his people, where 
 we came from, where we were going, and what 
 our names were. 
 
 We answered and looked at each other in 
 consternation, for while wc might get aboard 
 the high-sided boat, rocking in the water, what 
 of Dan ? Could he and would he do this 
 thing ? We did not beheve that he could or 
 would. 
 
 While Torquil was taking the horse from the 
 waggon, his daughter, aged eighteen, strongly 
 built and rosy-cheeked, appeared upon the 
 scene. She had come to help her father row 
 us over the ferry, and was accompanied by a 
 little boy and a solemn-faced baby. 
 
 Torquil and his buxom daughter laid hold 
 upon the waggon and pulled it out into the 
 water and aboard the boat, that vehicle going 
 through the most alarming contortions meaa- 
 time. Then it was Dan's turn, and we watched 
 with bated breath as he waded out. 
 
 " Get in there ! " said Torquil the ferryman 
 — and Dan got in ! It was a beautiful sight 
 
 195 
 
 
 I! 
 
I. i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 He pawed about with his front feet until he 
 got them over the side and in the boat, and 
 repeated the operation with his hind ones 
 until he was all in. Could he have known the 
 feelings with which we regarded him upon that 
 occasion, he would have been a proud and 
 happy horse. 
 
 As it was, he was no sooner in than he wished 
 himself out again, and it became necessary 
 for one of us to stand on a seat and keep 
 him from walking overboard, while Torquil 
 and his daughter pushed the boat from shore 
 and turned it toward the other side of the 
 harbour. 
 
 The baby was stowed for safe-keeping under 
 the seat in the bow, whence it peered out curi- 
 ous but silent — as became a Scotch baby. 
 The little boy pulled at his father's oar until 
 his face was crimson, and the strong-armed 
 daughter kept stroke with her father. Thus 
 we passed the perils of the sea. 
 
 As soon as the boat grated on the pebbles 
 of the opposite shore, Dan scrambled over- 
 board and Torquil harnessed him to the waggon. 
 "We paid the ferryman his fee and watched the 
 clumsy craft go back across the mouth of the 
 
 196 
 
 h'm 
 
*n 
 
 French River 
 
 harbour bearing the far-famed ferryman, his 
 strong daughter, his crimson-faced son, and his 
 silent baby. 
 
 This long narrow reef is a curious object 
 which, seen at a distance, looks more like an 
 artificial breakwater than a work of nature. It 
 is formed of large light-coloured cobblestones, 
 and the road over them was almost invisible, so 
 slight is the impression made upon them by 
 wheels and footsteps. Quantities of gulls flew 
 screaming about us, and upon the bar strange- 
 looking conifers spread themselves out. Broad 
 at the base, they were only three or four feet 
 high, grotesque caricatures of the elegantly 
 proportioned spruces and firs of the moun- 
 tains. Luxuriant patches of Herb Robert 
 with red-tinged leaves and deep pink blossoms 
 brightened the austere bar, and the Mertensia 
 Maritima was also in bloom, though Wve saw but 
 one plant of it. It is as scarce as it is charm- 
 ing and loves to adorn just such stony places. 
 Unfortunately for it, its pretty patches of blue- 
 gray leaves set on long stems radiating from 
 a centre are very noticeable among the stones, 
 even if it were not for the showy flowers, rose- 
 red in the bud, violet as they unfold, and finally 
 
 197 
 
 ?i I 
 
 V 
 
 W \ 
 
 i < I 
 
 I 
 
 \% 
 
I:?!;' 
 
 I> * 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 when fully open a deep pure blue, and they 
 fall victims to the passer-by. 
 
 We are distressed to recall that we took this 
 last plant, it may be thereby exterminating the 
 race, so far as that particular cobblestone bar 
 is concerned. Upon realising this, we wished 
 it back in its place among the stones, ripening 
 its seeds. But it was too late. The delicate 
 roots could not be returned to the crevices 
 whence they had been torn, and we regarded 
 the quaint and pretty blossoms that lay before 
 us with a feeling of guilt which it is to be 
 hoped is the fate of all vandals. 
 
 Patches of fragrant juniper covered with 
 clusters of dusky blue berries were scattered 
 over the bar, and the yellow August flower 
 nodded merrily to us from its hard lot among 
 the stones. 
 
 The August flower, as it is here called, grows 
 all over Nova Scotia. It is a yellow composite, 
 smaller and more delicate than a dandelion, and 
 the most joyous of weeds, standing anywhere 
 and everywhere that it can find room for a seed 
 to sprout, and making the roadsides and stony 
 places bright. 
 
 Once over the bar, the road lay along the 
 
 198 
 
French River 
 
 narrow stretch of level country between moun- 
 tains and sea. The houses by common con- 
 sent in this whole country keep as far away 
 from the road and from one another as they 
 can. We could see them set far back toward 
 the mountains and protected from the dangers 
 of the highway by broad fields which lay in 
 front of them. 
 
 For some distance the road winds Its charm- 
 ing way in full view of the surrounding moun- 
 tains and sea, and then it turns inland and 
 crosses the steep-banked Barasois River over a 
 new iron bridge. 
 
 Cape Breton is a remarkable place for brooks. 
 One feels obliged to keep on saying so, for 
 they keep on appearing, the most friendly and 
 joyous brooks ; sliding without a ripple over 
 mossy rocks, leaping wildly down the faces of 
 cliffs, disappearing, reappearing, murmuring, 
 smiling, roaring, they were our constant com- 
 panions, delightful beyond all reason. They are 
 brown brooks as a rule, a deep golden brown, 
 though sometimes they are emerald green-. 
 
 Indian Brook, which we crossed soon after 
 the Barasois, almost anywhere else would be 
 called a river. It has a broad stony beach 
 
 199 
 
 m 
 
 <l; 
 
F 
 
 '. \ 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 which tells a tale of flood when the glen it 
 traverses between the mountains was filled by 
 a wild torrent, for mountains of great beauty- 
 stand about Indian Brook. It is one of the 
 loveliest spots in Cape North, as the people call 
 all this northern peninsula. The mountains 
 that enclose the glen are like those at English- 
 town, while to the northward are seen the splen- 
 did headlands that stop at the sea, projecting 
 their imposing individual forms in dark masses 
 against the sky. The mouth of Indian Brook 
 traverses a wide flat expanse that in the autumn 
 is brilliant with the glorious colouring that 
 distinguishes the salt marsh. 
 
 Having secured a jar of milk and half a loaf 
 of sour bread from a wayside farmhouse set 
 well back from the road on a hill, when the 
 time came we had dinner by a brook-side. 
 Cape Breton is noted and justly so for sour 
 bread, but there are exceptions. 
 
 Cape Breton brooks might have been made 
 for camping purposes, so admirably are they 
 adapted to it, and the one we chose that day 
 was perfect. It had a broad bed of dry stones 
 with a clear cold stream in the middle and 
 bushes and trees along grassy banks, 
 
 200 
 
 '■» * 
 
French River 
 
 ide 
 ley 
 lay 
 les 
 Ind 
 
 On the dry stones, partly protected by a clump 
 of trees, the camp-fire burned cheerily, and 
 we had a royal dinner, leaving the Cape Breton 
 bread to the discussion of the birds. Dan 
 had several sheaves of fresh-cut oats, purchased 
 along the way, and we were all happy. 
 
 There was not a house nor a human being 
 In sight, only the sky, the cold brook, the 
 splendid air, and the trees and birds for com- 
 pany. Had we known as much then as we 
 did later, we might have added brook trout 
 to our feast. 
 
 We lingered long, lying on the warm grass 
 in the sun while Dan cropped about the bushes. 
 The good fellow endeared himself to us quite 
 as much through his faults as his virtues, — for 
 his weaknesses were human like our own. 
 
 He loved the midday rest. He knew when 
 the time came, and sometimes even selected the 
 spot. When he had had a pleasant time of long 
 duration, he showed his appreciation by good- 
 naturedly putting himself between the shafts, 
 which it is the custom in Cape Breton to hold 
 up above the horse ; but his opinion of an in- 
 sufficient play spell he expressed by meanly 
 stepping in sideways so that the shafts lay 
 
 20 1 
 
 t ( 
 
 II 
 
 III 
 
 ii \ 
 
 \ i J 
 
ni' 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 across his back. This he would do time and 
 again, resisting the combined efforts of the two 
 of us to get him in straight until he considered 
 us sufficiently punished, when he would turn 
 around of his own accord. 
 
 Wherever we were, the same forms went 
 flitting ahead of us, the same uncertain colour 
 and quick motion, only the white feathers on 
 the sides of their outspread tails betraying the 
 juncos and their sociable tsip, tsip^ tsip^ telling 
 us we were not alone in the wilderness. 
 
 The approach to Sandy McDonald's is over 
 undulating fields ; it is not on the highway, no 
 house in Cape Breton is, and it is not in view 
 from the highway. One goes there on faith. 
 The track worn through the fields meanders 
 along toward the sea, and one meanders along 
 over it, with no sign of what one is seeking 
 until upon climbing a hill the house is suddenly 
 in view, standing on the very edge of the sea 
 bluff and flanked by a small barn and the 
 roofs of a group of buildings that scarcely rise 
 above the bank. 
 
 The house stands alone on that wild coast 
 with the restless northern sea reaching out to 
 
 the " Grand Banks," and the nearer waters 
 
 202 
 
 H-i,-f- 
 
French River 
 
 yielding great store of codfish to Sandy aad 
 his fishermen. 
 
 There is a wide and slightly rolling meadow 
 to be crossed before the house is reached, and 
 this meadow, when we passed that way, had 
 been given a recent top-dressing of fish-heads, 
 which sent forth a mighty odour. As the 
 house was approached, however, the fish-heads 
 were left behind, and the strong, clean winds 
 from the sea drove the stench landward, leaving 
 about the McDonald habitation only its legiti- 
 mate odours of fresh and drying fish. 
 
 Fish is the keynote to life at Sandy Mc- 
 Donald's. There is fish everywhere about the 
 place ; indeed, man himself seems a subordi- 
 nate work of nature, created for the purpose 
 of catching and curing fish. 
 
 The house stands on the top of the bluflf 
 and down below are fish in all stages of prepa- 
 ration. Down there, too, are the buildings 
 where the fish are salted and laid in piles to 
 await their turn on the flakes. 
 
 These dark-hued old fish-huts, with their 
 briny odours and weather-worn aspect, give one 
 the feeling that they have grown there like 
 barnacles on the bank. They stand with their 
 
 203 
 
 i I 
 
 / \ 
 
» ' 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 backs against the bluff, and about them are 
 large frames roofed with poles, the flakes ap- 
 propriate to the scale upon which fishing is 
 here carried on. 
 
 Standing about are large black iron pots with 
 signs of extinct fires still visible under them; 
 and there are vats of livers ; and everywhere 
 fish are lying or hanging, the cod having the 
 place of honour on the flakes, the queer-look- 
 ing remnants of dogfish or skates spread out 
 on the beach or hung up anywhere. 
 
 The huddle of huts and great flakes, the 
 boats drawn up on the shore, are all of the 
 same weather-worn hue ; and, seen against 
 the sombre, treeless bank with the boundless 
 expanse of the northern sea in front, the place 
 has a wild and remote aspect at once unique 
 and impressive. 
 
 In the narrow path that leads along between 
 fish huts and flakes we saw a small and shaggy- 
 haired ox with a yoke about his neck attached 
 to a sled that would have graced an ethnologi- 
 cal museum, for if it was not the work of 
 primitive man, it at least was the primitive 
 work of man, which amounts to about the same 
 thing, so far as looks are concerned. 
 
 204 
 
French River 
 
 m 
 
 And Sandy McDonald owns the whole of 
 this uncommon place. House, barn, store, 
 for there is a store well stocked with fisher- 
 men's needs next the house, fish-huts, fish- 
 flakes, shaggy ox, and primitive-looking sled, — 
 all are his. 
 
 When we got there in the afternoon the 
 day's work was done, the fishermen were scat- 
 tered, and there only remained the evidences of 
 their recent presence in the fresh fish that were 
 lying about and the long, lank, newly hung 
 strips of dogfish drying for the horses and 
 cows. They told us that a horse fed on dried 
 dogfish presently acquires a glossiness beauti- 
 ful to behold. 
 
 French River runs over a stony bed to the 
 north of the house. It winds its shallow way 
 to the sea untroubled by the fact that the 
 McDonald household has to descend the bank 
 to its level and carry back every drop of water 
 the family uses. 
 
 This is the romantic but extremely incon- 
 venient habit throughout Cape Breton. Each 
 house is built as near as possible to its own 
 river or brook or spring. If the land in the 
 
 immediate neighbourhood of water is not suit- 
 
 205 
 
'■•.! 1, 
 
 6; .» 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 able for building purposes, so much the worse 
 for the family. The little meandering paths 
 from h •"? to spring are very pretty in the 
 summe. ine, and one is willing not to know 
 them in the winter. 
 
 There must be people somewhere near Sandy 
 McDonald's, for we saw little children on the 
 bank above us as we walked among the remains 
 of fish that afternoon of our arrival. The little 
 creatures seemed to belong to some untamed 
 branch of humanity, they were so wild in looks 
 and behaviour, fleeing like wind-blown elves if 
 we so m -ch as looked in their direction. They 
 finally '^ themselves down on the top of the 
 bank anu peered down at us, only their heads 
 visible, while they would occasionally spring 
 up like a row of jumping-jacks, tossing their 
 arms and gesticulating wildly. It was a strange 
 place as the sunset glow warmed the sky and 
 the great northern sea darkened, with the 
 weather-worn fish-huts, the great flakes, the 
 strong odour of drying fish about us, and 
 above us the grim bank with the forms of the 
 strangely behaving children outlined against 
 the red sky. 
 
 The McDonald bread is not sour, and pretty 
 
 206 
 
 ■-iiS 
 
French River 
 
 Mrs. McDonald prepared supper, of which 
 we partook with the family, consisting of Mr. 
 and Mrs. McDonald and their little boy, and 
 Mr. McDonald asked a Gaelic blessing over 
 the meal. 
 
 In the morning we saw the real life of this 
 remote fishing-station. By the time we had 
 eaten breakfast, the dories were rlready coming 
 back with the result of the day's catch. 
 
 Hours before we were awake the fishermen 
 had pulled out to sea, and there in the darkness 
 had drawn in the cods, the skates, and the dog- 
 fish. We watched the boats come in, bobbing 
 over the water and all making for the same 
 point, — the shore where we stood. When a 
 boat neared the strand, it was headed at right 
 angles to the breakers and driven hard ashore. 
 As it grated on the pebbles the men jumped 
 overboard; one of them threw one of the enor- 
 mous oars under the bow for a roller, and all 
 hands laying hold upon either side of the boat 
 with shouting and laughter drew it, load and 
 all, up on the pebbly beach beyond high tide. 
 
 The heavy boats were laid side by side so 
 close together as almost to touch. It was quite 
 exciting and very picturesque, for the men were 
 
 207 
 
 1 
 
 % 
 
 *i 
 
"^V*^ 
 
 ■: l\ 
 
 f 
 
 1 
 
 Hi 
 
 Down No'rth and Up Along 
 
 ■ ■I .III I — » ,., ■ ■■ ■-II..I — !■, ■l^■^ — . — ■ ——^l^ 
 
 clad in tarpaulins and their speech was Gaelic. 
 As soon as a boat was landed, all gathered 
 abou*- it to examine and comment upon its 
 contents ; then the tables were set up and the 
 work of "dressing down" began. 
 
 The tables were the colour 'yi the fish-huts, 
 the flakes, and the sombre bank ; they had criss- 
 cross legs nailed to either end, and looked 
 soggy on top, where the juices of innumerable 
 fish had been spilled upon them. 
 
 The cod were mostly small the morning we 
 saw them. We had not thought well of the 
 personal appearance of the cod heretofore, but 
 many of these were of a brilliant metallic brown 
 played over by shades of red and green. 
 
 Besides the cod there were quantities of dog- 
 fish, more dogfish than cod indeed ; and every 
 boat had at least one, and some of them several 
 enormous skates. Their semi-lunar mouths 
 were placed underneath the front of the kite- 
 shaped body and were horribly paved with blunt 
 and rounded teeth that fastened unyieldingly 
 upon anything that came within reach. 
 
 In each boat was store of squid for bait. 
 There are no queerer creatures than these, 
 saft, long, and cylindrical, reddish yellow in 
 
 208 
 
a: 
 
 iJ;i 
 
 i: 
 
 ^: 
 
Is ■' 
 
 Pi 
 
French River 
 
 colour, with long tentacles growing out from 
 the head end. The head end is spotted and 
 speckled with bright colours, and up and down 
 run lines of changing and iridescent hues, as 
 though the blood in their transparent bodies 
 were made of the essence of rainbows. Their 
 conduct is as queer as their appearance, for 
 when they are first pulled out of the water 
 they squirt ink upon their captors, and that 
 they are pulled out at all is entirely their own 
 fault, for the fisherman but drops overboard a 
 cylindrical piece of lead painted red with a row 
 of hooks bent backward around the lower end. 
 This object the squid embraces, wrapping his 
 inner tentacles about it and so impaling himself. 
 The instrument is not baited in any way, and 
 for a squid to behave as he does toward it 
 seems too absurd even for a squid. 
 
 As soon as the tables were set up, the work 
 of " dressing down *' began in earnest. The 
 cod were taken first and whisked through the 
 process with great speed and no ceremony. A 
 boy tossed the fish from boat to table. A man 
 caught it by the head, ran his knife around the 
 gills, broke its neck, slit it open down the 
 
 belly, and sent it sliding over the greasy table 
 14 209 
 
 V I 
 
 \ 
 
 •I' 
 
 1'"' 
 
 I 
 
 .«i 
 
^i 
 
 ./ ; 
 
 In 
 
 
 I / 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 to another man, who tore off its head and 
 tossed that into a barrel, tore out its insides, 
 tossed the liver into one barrel, the "sound," 
 if a big one, into another, the rest of the in- 
 wards into a third, and sent the rifled remains 
 along to another man who slit it down the 
 sides, cut out the backbone, and tossed what 
 was left of it into a tub of sea-water, where a 
 boy swashed it up and down and laid it aside 
 ready to be salted. 
 
 But as long as it takes to tell of one fish, a 
 dozen or more had gone througn the process ; 
 they slipped along from hand to hand in an 
 almost unbroken chain. 
 
 The stomachs of the largest cod were opened, 
 to see what booty there might be therein, for as 
 Father Charlevoix, in his Letters to the Duch- 
 ess of Lesdiguieres, published in 1763, says : 
 
 " There is perhaps no Creature, in Proportion to its 
 Bigness, that has so wide a Mouth, or that is more 
 voracious.** 
 
 He tells us that the cod of his day ate iron 
 
 and glass and pieces of broken pots, and then, 
 
 feeling obliged to account for the consequences 
 
 of such a rash diet, he adds : — 
 
 210 
 
es 
 
 a. 
 C/3 
 
 f^ 
 
 i, 
 
 (."♦ 
 {1i 
 
 i^-' 
 J 
 
 
 S 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 *. 
 
 m 
 
I i 
 
 ' t 
 
French River 
 
 "Now we are convinced that the Cod can turn 
 itself Inside-out like a Pocket, and that the Fish 
 frees itself from any Thing that troubles it by this 
 Means." 
 
 That was certainly a very convenient habit, 
 but one not possessed by the cod of the present 
 time. The cod we saw opened had made no 
 prizes excepting that three or four good-sized 
 lobsters in an unimpaired condition were taken 
 from one of them and laid aside. One wonders 
 whether it is courage or callousness that enables 
 a codfish to swallow a live lobster, claws and 
 all, — and why the lobster allows it. 
 
 After the dressing down of the cod came the 
 turn of the hake and pollock, then of the 
 leathery dogfish, these little sharks being very 
 summarily dealt with and not washed at all. 
 
 Last of all came the skates, their enormous 
 bodies, shaped like a Chinese kite, almost cov- 
 ering the tables and heaving up and down as 
 though the creatures were labouring for breath. 
 Only a small semi-lunar section is cut out of 
 the skate and used ; this is coarse meat, but we 
 were told that when well cooked it is not ill 
 flavoured. 
 
 The men laughed over their work and talked 
 
 311 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 If I 
 
■i r 
 
 9i 
 
 u I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 Gaelic, and we had a feeling that it was as well 
 we could not understand all that was being 
 said. They were a rude set, harmless enough, 
 no doubt, and when at home would probably 
 have been found in the scattered houses that 
 stand so far from the road. 
 
 Here, at Sandy McDonald's, we saw the 
 whole method of dealing with the cod from 
 beginning to end, all but the catching of it, 
 and we felt quite willing to let that rest with 
 the imagination. 
 
 While we made our preparations to depart, 
 all of the fishermen in their tarpaulins stood in 
 line and looked on. They were very quiet, 
 only uttering an occasional comment in Gaelic. 
 They made no effort to help or to hinder, 
 but stood there. 
 
 Probably it was many a long day since they 
 had been blessed with so diverting a spectacle. 
 And as for ourselves, we cannot remember a 
 time when things proved so contrary, when 
 so many apples escaped and rolled around for 
 the admiration of the spectator, and when pro- 
 visions, personal effects, and cooking utensils 
 showed such perverse refusal to go where they 
 belonged. To see us harness our horse, rea- 
 
 212 
 
French River 
 
 dered our attentive audience speechless ; even 
 Gaelic failed them. 
 
 At the brow of the hill we turned for a last 
 look at the quaint fishing-station, and there 
 was the group of tarpaulins, still gazing after 
 us. We cannot shake off the feeling that they 
 are there still, standing in line and gazing 
 speechless toward the brow of the hill. 
 
 ai3 
 
 m:- 
 
 1 m 
 
 I' 
 
 ' \\\ 
 
 '% fi 
 
u 
 
 drh 
 
 XV 
 CAPE SMOKY 
 
 CAPE NORTH is the home of the 
 balsam fir, whose delightful fragrance 
 fairly pours out in the heat of the 
 sun. It is as full of sweetness as 
 an orange-tree, every part of it, wood, leaf, 
 bark, and root, yielding an aromatic juice. 
 
 There are blisters full of resinous sap on the 
 trunks, old firs sometimes having quite large 
 reservoirs of this " balsam ; " and we amused 
 ourselves by cutting into them with a penknife 
 and seeing the clear liquid gush out. It was 
 as clear as water with a sharp turpentine taste, 
 and quickly dried into a sticky glue. We cut 
 a great many balsam blisters on our way to 
 Cape North, and we hope the trees did not 
 suffer. 
 
 All the way from Baddeck to. the rocky 
 headland of Cape Noi th, the houses are of the 
 same mind with regard to the road and to one 
 another. They are scattered far apart and far- 
 ther as one goes north, and under no circum- 
 
 8x4 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 stances do they place themselves close to the 
 road, which they seem to regard with so much 
 distrust. 
 
 ^ The fences are often as picturesque as the 
 zigzag rail fence known as the "Virginia 
 snake," though it belongs as much to New 
 England as to Virginia. Cape Breton fences 
 are sometimes made of small tree-trunks with 
 the bark on, and these are laid together in a 
 manner local to the place and pleasing to the 
 eye. The gates are even prettier than the 
 fences and are more varied in design, each sec- 
 tion seeming to possess its own stvle of gate- 
 architecture. 
 
 The gates do not open into dooryards but 
 into wide fields, somewhere beyond which the 
 house is safely intrenched. Sometimes there 
 are several intervening fields, and he who would 
 visit must open several gates before he can get 
 to his neighbours. They are wide gates as a 
 rule, through which loads of hay can pass. 
 The small gate, quickly opened and quickly 
 closed, a sort of invitation to enter, is seldom 
 seen here. 
 
 The people often shut their doors when they 
 saw us coming, and upon one occasion an old 
 
 215 
 
 I'i 
 
 Ml 
 
 I 
 
'!, ! 
 
 i U 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 woman closed the house and made good her 
 escape to the barn. 
 
 Shut the door on us as they would, however, 
 we had always an open sesame in the name of 
 Mr. Gibbons, and to some of them we bore 
 personal messages from him. It was a beauti- 
 ful sight to see the hard faces lighten, and sus- 
 picion give way to confidence at the mention 
 of his name. They eagerly asked news of him, 
 and sent back messages of this one and that 
 one to whom good or bad fortune had come 
 since his departure. 
 
 Human nature is quite as human here as 
 elsewhere we discovered upon approaching a 
 house set back on a hillside one day. The open 
 kitchen door was promptly closed, as, crestfallen 
 but not vanquished, we drew near. Presently, 
 however, the parlour door was cautiously set 
 part way open, and by the time we were fairly 
 arrived the inmate was so industriously sewing 
 that she did not observe our approach, — this 
 notwithstanding that she had been unable to re- 
 frai' -^ oking out a moment before to see 
 ^ t were. The woman was young, 
 
 auu e V o working upon a bright red merino 
 child's dress, elaborately trimmed with lace. 
 
 ax6 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 Such we had not seen elsewhere in Cape Breton, 
 and prompdy taking our cue we heaped upon 
 it the wonderment and praise it merited, while 
 the proud mother's eyes shone ; and during her 
 detailed exhibition of it we could not help dis- 
 covering that it was quite finished and the 
 appearance of industry had been but an ingeni- 
 ous device to bring it upon the scene. She 
 told us she had kept the materials ever since 
 she came from Boston, where she had once 
 worked. 
 
 To have worked in Boston is a mark of high 
 distinction, and gives a girl a right to put on 
 airs and be looked up to. She comes back 
 from there with ideas and with all sorts of 
 household embellishments, many of which are 
 of a nature to make one hope they are not dis- 
 tinctive of the aesthetic status of Boston. To 
 Boston the surplus youth of a family find their 
 way, and Boston and the United States are 
 synonymous in Cape Breton. 
 
 Boats at Halifax connect with Boston and 
 the West Indies, and these ports are the known 
 world to the Nova Scotian, besides Canada. 
 
 A woman at Baddeck, upon hearing us men- 
 tion Chicago, so soon after its Great Fair, too, 
 
 SX7 
 
 I 
 
 '.ii 
 
H; 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 ■■ .'■'■ . — —.■ — ...■—■ ■ ■■■■ — ■■I .— II M I I ■ . . — - — ■■■■■ 
 
 said, "Oh, yes, I have heard the name before; 
 it is near Florida." It will be hard for Chi- 
 cago to believe this, but it is true. 
 
 This unhappy state of affairs is doubtless 
 due to the curious nature of the geographies 
 used and taught in the schools. It gives 
 one a queer feeling to open one of them and 
 observe the great size and multi-coloured ap- 
 pearance of Canada, while the United States 
 is a little neutral-coloured oblong somewhere 
 down below. 
 
 In our geographies, which we know have 
 been made with a great deal of care, the relative 
 importance of the two countries is reversed, 
 Canada appearing as a nearly blank upper 
 border to the map, while the I'nited States is 
 evidently a mighty nation, resplendent \: bril- 
 liant geographical colouring. Could the Nova 
 Scotian be induced — or compelled — to use 
 our school books, he would soon cease to be 
 ignorant. 
 
 We made many calls along the road, having 
 always an excuse in asking the way oi' buying 
 potatoes. This last was M.'s duty, and she regu- 
 larly fulf lied it by presenting the large copper 
 cent of the country, and asking for its equivalent 
 
 2l3 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 in potatoes. This was a language the people 
 understood, and the cent was always honoured 
 by enough potatoes for a meal, — the only busi- 
 ness transaction we !iad with these canny Scotch 
 in which we felt perfectly sure they were not 
 getting the better of us. 
 
 The houses contained four or five rooms 
 generally, though some had an attic as well. 
 In the best of them was always a sitting-room 
 or parlour, its floor covered with home-made 
 rugs, and on the table were a few books of a 
 theological nature. Opening from the sitting- 
 room there was often a tiny guest-chamber 
 elaborately furnished with rugs and tidies. 
 
 There was one ornament in several of these 
 houses which we never had seen anywhere else. 
 This was a chocolate-coloured card, whereon 
 were set forth the virtues of a deceased mem- 
 ber of the family in gilt letters. These cards 
 were lying on the centre-table in the parlour; 
 and though they did not add to its cheerfulness 
 we liked them better than the silver coffin- 
 plates framed in black velvet which we had 
 seen hanging on the wjills of a Massachusetts 
 farmhouse. 
 
 Every house has its rugs, sometimes beauti- 
 
 ai9 
 
 4 
 
'i. 1' 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 fill and always interesting. They cover the 
 otherwise bare floor of the parlour, where there 
 is one, and make spots of warmth for the feet 
 in kitchen and bedroom. They are made of 
 rags " hooked " into a foundation of coarse 
 cotton cloth. 
 
 The women save their rags and colour them 
 charmingly from the bark of trees and from 
 plants which they gather in the forest and 
 steep for the purpose. With these coloured 
 rags they work through the long winters, creat- 
 ing marvellous patterns of flower or bird, or 
 merely of combinations of geometric figures, or 
 of figures known to no science whatever. They 
 vie with one another and willingly endure much 
 weariness, for a large rug is a back-aching and a 
 finger-aching task. One who has not seen 
 these creations could hardly believe there were 
 such possibilities in rags. They are to the 
 women of Cape Breton what worsted work, 
 wax flowers, and various forms of painting are 
 to the country people of some other places. 
 But here the occupation never changes, the craze 
 of one season is the craze of the next. Often 
 these rugs were more lurid than harmonious 
 in their colours, but the most of them gave a 
 
 220 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 homely cheeriness to the bare raftered rooms 
 that could not be dispensed with. 
 
 Besides making rugs many of the women 
 spin and weave their own cloth ; and in a few 
 of the houses the clumsy and picturesque loom 
 was still standing, though for the most part the 
 looms were not in place, weaving being winter 
 work. 
 
 Cape North homespun is not beautiful. 
 The warp is made of cotton and the cloth is 
 harsh to the touch, and generally ugly in colour. 
 But the great loom, sometimes half filling the 
 room, is a picturesque adjunct to the cottages 
 which we hope will not be in haste to depart. 
 
 Most of the houses had no chimneys and 
 of course no fireplaces, a stove-pipe through 
 a hole in the roof allowing the smoke to 
 escape. A queer cylinder-backed stove was 
 very common, as if some enterprising stove 
 agent had passed that way within a recent his- 
 torical period. 
 
 How the people manage to keep warm 
 through the long winters is a mystery, for the 
 houses seemed to us in many cases but little 
 better suited to withstand the cold than are the 
 cabins of Southern Florida. 
 
 \% 
 
 f 
 
 321 
 
 '«! 
 
if. \i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 We were vividly reirmded of the south, too, 
 by seeing women washing clothes out of doors. 
 They had the same large black iron pots for 
 heating water over a fire on the ground. One 
 wonders how early in the seabon they begin it, 
 and how late they end it, and what happens 
 during the long months of deep snow when no 
 clothes can be washed out of doors. 
 
 The kitchen was the largest room and the 
 most interesting. The dishes stood in a home- 
 made dresser open in front, the plates and 
 saucers upright in rows against the wall, and 
 the cups hanging on hooks. There were 
 wooden chests standing along the sides, that 
 also served for seats, and odd-looking little 
 cupboards hung on the walls, while various 
 objects depended from the beams with pictur- 
 esque effect. Sometimes a wide bed stood in 
 one corner. 
 
 The men belonging to these houses are 
 fishermen, and the women do the work of the 
 fields. 
 
 The women in the barley fields were a 
 pleasant sight as we passed along, and came 
 upon them amongst the yellow grain in their 
 short homespun petticoats, a gay kerchief tied 
 
 222 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 over their heads, and the bright sickle in their 
 hands, for the barley is cut with sickles here. 
 One in search of pictures of peasant life need 
 not go farther than the barley fields of Cape 
 Breton. ■ 
 
 The men fish and the women work the 
 farms. I asked a girl which was the harder. 
 " Oh, the fishing," she replied ; " that is much 
 harder; the field work will be easy." She told 
 us the men sometimes went out at four o'clock 
 in the morning and did not get back until four 
 in the afternoon, and all that time without 
 food, " for they will never eat on the boats." 
 
 The people are industrious and temperate. 
 One of them told us Cape Breton folks had to 
 be ; they had to work continually, and strong 
 drink meant immediate ruin. 
 
 The fare is principally salt fish and potatoes, 
 strong tea and oatmeal porridge. Each family 
 keeps a cow and a few hens, and some have 
 sheep. No attempt seems ever to be made to 
 prepare the food in any but the simplest and 
 to our minds least palatable manner. The fish 
 IS boiled, the potatoes are boiled, and the meal 
 is served without any further trouble. 
 
 The children, brought up on a diet of oat- 
 
 223 
 
 *% 
 
 
hm 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 meal, salt fish, and potatoes, scorn the luxuries 
 of an effete civilisation, as we discovered upon 
 presenting some bananas to the youngsters of 
 a house where we s'jpped. They tasted, spat 
 violently, and ran howling to their mother, who 
 was as much mortified as we were amused. 
 We thereat ter refrained from proffering tropi- 
 cal fruits to children reared so near the pole. 
 
 In the winter, it seems that those who own 
 sheep kill one, and this gives them the only 
 fresh meat of the year. Of course the poorer 
 families do not have even this. 
 
 At the time of our visit the mountains were 
 covered with blueberries, the largest and 
 sweetest we ever tasted. These the people 
 gathered and ate without sugar or milk, and 
 allowed the surplus to lie and ferment, in 
 which state they seemed to be relished just as 
 well, though they were as sour as vinegar and 
 half decomposed. No one took the trouble to 
 cook them or dry them, or in any way pre- 
 serve them for winter use. 
 
 We stopped at some strange places in the 
 course of our leisurely journey, and the mo- 
 ment of reckoning was always a delightful one 
 
 to M., who stood discreetly aloof and watched 
 
 224 
 
Early iVIornlnc; on the Coast 
 
 i fi 
 
 , ^. 
 
 ( '8, 
 
 t M 
 
\l 
 
 f ■ -si 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 her partner feebly struggling in unequal con- 
 test with disciplined and inherited Scotch 
 "thrift." No matter how pleasant our inter-, 
 course with the family had been, when the 
 time caiTie for settling the account there was a 
 tightening up, so to speak, of voice and visage, 
 we were regarded with intense suspicion, and 
 our indebtedness announced in a voice so hard 
 and cold as to be quite terrifying. The man — 
 for the settlement was always made with the 
 man — knew he had charged more than value 
 rendered, and was prepared to combat any 
 remonstrance. 
 
 But when the matter was settled, even if we 
 won a few points, the former friendliness re- 
 turned, " business " was over, and whatever 
 firmness we had displayed was far from having 
 lowered us in the esteem of these canny 
 Scotchmen. M. said they liked us all the 
 better for it. They sometimes excused them- 
 selves by explaining that we "had money in 
 the bank and could pay as well as not," other- 
 wise we would not be able to " take a cruise " 
 just for pleasure. 
 
 It was soon after leaving Sandy McDonald's 
 that we pulled up short to keep from run- 
 
 IS 
 
 225 
 
 \ 
 
 i:'i 
 
 '( 
 
 ri 
 
\!;^ 
 
 Down North and Up Alon^ 
 
 ning over an old man who tottered across the 
 road under Dan's nose, and then clasped our 
 front wheel in both bony hands as though to 
 anchor us there. He gazed at us, and we at 
 him, and finally we spoke to him, and he re- 
 plied, " Sorr? " Thinking him deaf, we spoke 
 louder, but he still replied, " Sorr ? " Then it 
 dawned upon us that we were talking in an 
 unknown tongue, and we inquired if he spoke 
 Gaelic ; " garlic ** they pronounce it here. He 
 nodded in the affirmative and also assured us 
 that he could " speak enough English," and 
 began a friendly conversation in his native 
 Gaelic, which we on our part kept up in well- 
 chosen English, and thus we passed a most 
 agreeable half-hour, each saying exactly what 
 he thought, without danger of giving offence 
 to the other. 
 
 To say " yes, sir, to a gentleman, and yes, 
 ma'am, to a lady,*' has evidently been a part 
 of the polite education of these regions, but 
 " sorr " has nearly superseded " ma'am," being 
 applied universally and regardless of sex, and we 
 received the polite responses, " yes, sorr," and 
 "no, sorr," the whole length of Cape North, — 
 usually with unconscious gravity, but in the 
 
 226 
 
 ^'^:<;J 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 case of pretty Katie McPherson it was the cause 
 of much confusion. We met Katie and sev- 
 eral other little girls on their way home from 
 school. They stood aside, with downcast eyes 
 and fingers in their mouths, to let us pass, for 
 the children here are very bashful, but when 
 we stopped and inquired the way to a certain 
 house, Katie rose to the emergency and said, 
 " Sorr ? " We repeated the question in a 
 friendly and beguiling manner, punctuating 
 our remarks with a ginger cooky apiece, for 
 we had brought a supply of these delectable 
 things for just such occasions ; and Katie, 
 from amidst her gratitude and blushes, was 
 finally able to articulate, " no, sorr," then the 
 impropriety of her remark burst upon her and 
 she quickly amended, " no, ma'am," nearly 
 overcome by shame and the fit of giggling 
 that seized her. 
 
 " I don't think," which seems to be the only 
 form of speech expressing doubt in all Nova 
 Scotia, is also frequently heard in Cape North. 
 It is rather disconcerting at first to inquire 
 whether your road takes a certain direction and 
 be sadly informed that he whom you address 
 " don't think." You will often have no diifi* 
 
 227 
 
 II 
 
 W^ 
 
 mi 
 
it 
 
 eH 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 culty in believing the statement, but in time 
 will learn that it does nol mean quite what it 
 says. 
 
 All along the way are rounded hillsides cov- 
 ered with tawny grass and run over by large 
 white sheep with beautiful fleeces. The sheep 
 were never in large flocks, but in groups of 
 half-a-dozen or so. Sometimes they would 
 come tumbling down a bank by the roadside 
 and run along in front of us to disappear into 
 the first gap that took their fancy. But gen- 
 erally we saw them on the hillsides moving 
 about, or bounding in graceful undulations 
 through the tawny grass. These hillsides were 
 often yellow with the airy August flower, which 
 may not have been nutritious, but was lovely 
 in company with the large soft-fleeced sheep. 
 
 It being harvest time, we constantly came 
 upon distracting pictures of red-cheeked, short- 
 gowned girls among the yellow barley, stoop- 
 ing, with one hand grasping the ripe grain, 
 the other the sickle, and eyeing us curiously 
 as they stopped midway in their work, or else 
 standing erect, arms on hips and sickle still in 
 hand, to gaze after the strangers. Sometimes 
 we stopped and spoke to them, but seldom 
 
 228 
 
 W- 
 
 r:(1 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 with much result. The old women were often 
 seen in the barley patches, equally picturesque 
 though not as pretty as the young ones ; and 
 the old, old men were sometimes there, those 
 too old to fish. 
 
 Those were halcyon days, when we travelled 
 toward Cape North in the sunshine, with the 
 invigorating air about us, the barley fields yel- 
 low with ripe grain and gay with the reapers, 
 and the sea with its white sails ever coming 
 unexpectedly into view, while the beautiful 
 sheep started from the fir woods at the road- 
 side or bounded over the flowery hills. 
 
 Cape North is the artist's paradise from end 
 to end, and it is an ideal place for camping, 
 with its fine summer weather, its refreshing 
 brooks at short intervals, and its beautiful 
 mountains and sea. 
 
 On the way to Smoky, one passes Wreck 
 Cove, its name sadly significant, for every year 
 there are terrible shipwrecks along this iron- 
 bound coast. Wreck Cove, however, in the 
 summer-time and from the land side, is terri- 
 fying only in name, for about it are lovely 
 hills that make of it a miniature Indian Brook. 
 
 As one nears Smoky, the houses and barley 
 
 229 
 
 t 
 
 ■ \\ 
 
m 
 
 /« 
 
 1^ t^.|! 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 fields are left behind, the road takes a turn to 
 the left and runs some distance into the land, 
 following a very noisy water-course which 
 rushes through a glen at the right and which 
 is so far down that only the tops of the trees — 
 mapies, birches, and oaks — whose roots are at 
 its level, reach to the road where we "ourney. 
 Much of the time we cannot see it through 
 the intervening foliage, but again we catch 
 glimpses of bright, hurrying water. 
 
 This is one of those mossy-banked roads 
 one remembers with such pleasure ; and at a 
 brook which crosses it we stopped one day 
 for dinner, that we might be rested and re- 
 freshed for the difficult passing of SrAoky, 
 with its wonderful views and its terrifying 
 precipices. Over a camp-fire such as we had 
 now learned to make with skill, we prepared 
 a tempting meal of broiled " American " bacon. 
 Cape Breton potatoes stewed in milk, hard 
 ship's biscuit, French pickles, and a cup of 
 coffee. For dessert we had " capillaire " ber- 
 ries, exquisite store of which we found adorn- 
 ing the mossy bank near which we rested. 
 ** Capillaire " is the pretty name there given 
 to our snowberry, the daintiest darling of our 
 
 230 
 
to 
 
 O 
 
 X 
 < 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
m 
 
 •i t'f ■''■ 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 northern mountains. Nothing could be de- 
 vised for a mossy hank lovelier than its fairy- 
 vines tracing an embroidery of tiny leaves 
 over the moss, or hanging in a curtain over 
 the edge, and nothing that grows cculd be 
 daintier than its snowy fruit with its peculiar 
 and delicate flavour. 
 
 While sitting on the mossy bank beside the 
 snowberries, we had the added pleasure of 
 being croaked to by ravens. We had expected 
 to make their acquaintance, if we were so for- 
 tunate as to do so at all, the other side of 
 Smoky, for we had heard they nested near 
 Ingonish. But surely these great black fel- 
 lows were they, though probably we should 
 not have discovered it had they kept still. 
 The hoarse, rattling cry that revealed their 
 identity and surprised and delighted us was 
 never the voic3 of a crow. 
 
 On a firm bridge we crossed the chasm of 
 the deep-down brook we had been following, 
 and began to ascend &, winding road. Occa- 
 sional outlooks through the trees afforded en- 
 chanting glimpses of far-reaching blue sea, of 
 bold bluffs that stood on the edge of the water 
 and of intervening valleys. Rocky slopes near 
 
 231 
 
 ' 1 1 
 
 1^ 
 
 \n 
 
 '1* 
 
H 
 
 ^ • 
 
 m 
 
 :v^. 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 us were grown over by blueberry bushes with 
 reddened leaves and lavish abundance of ripe 
 fruit; while the round-leaved, aromatic winter- 
 green of our childhood deeply carpeted the 
 wayside. Heavy growths of ferns and brakes 
 filled the hollows. We went slowly, even more 
 slowly than the rising grade demanded, often 
 stopping to enjoy the wildness and the sweet- 
 ness of the way. As we went on, the expand- 
 ing views and the greater depths into which we 
 looked told us we were nearing the top. 
 
 No perils of the way had been encountered 
 until of a sudden we came upon a ledge where 
 were realised our hopes of Smoky and almost 
 our fears. On our left rose the wall of the 
 mountain, while between that and the deep 
 descent to the sea was the ledge upon which 
 the road had been built. It was a good 
 enough road now, buttressed by heavy planks 
 and widened by broken stone, but it was easy 
 to see how in other times it had been a slant- 
 ing and dangerous trail where the traveller 
 might have met with disaster. The view was 
 of the sea over the tree-tops that grew on the 
 lower slopes. It was a lofty perch, from which 
 the sails looked like white dots on the water. 
 
 232 
 
Cape Smoky 
 
 We passed this ledge and went on through 
 the woods soon to turn a corner and find our- 
 selves upon a similar ledge and facing the 
 majestic form of Cape Smoky. 
 
 It stood across an abyss from us, a bold front 
 of red syenite rising nearly a thousand feet up 
 out of the sea in a very steep slope. Its vast, 
 storm-polished front was bare and scarred 
 except where near the top the blueberry and 
 other bushes had painted it warm tones of red 
 and yellow. The hard syenite had resisted the 
 merciless dash of winter sleet and the yet more 
 merciless action of the frost to a wonderful 
 degree. Instead of being torn and jagged, the 
 splendid sweep of stone was smooth and in 
 places fairly polished. 
 
 There was no cloud about the brow of 
 Smoky then ; the massive form lay before us 
 in the light of a clear day, sharp-cut against 
 the blue above and the blue below, for the 
 sea line was high on Smoky's flank from where 
 we stood. 
 
 Out of the blue sea the form of the ruddy 
 headland rose in the clear northern air, while 
 back of it, though not visible from this point, 
 were other fire-born mountains of yet greater 
 
 233 
 
 1; 
 
 .,""1 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 height, but all more or less softened by time 
 and clad in vegetation. 
 
 Only Smoky's stern front remains bare to the 
 terrific storms that in vain assail it and that 
 cause the waves to beat with frightful but 
 unavailing force against its iron base. Filled 
 with a sense of its immutability and impressed 
 by its stern grandeur, we wound along our 
 narrow ledge and down behind the mighty 
 headland. 
 
 !l; 
 
 \ 
 
 i! 
 
 I'j 
 
 
 «34 
 
 . " "• • '^M 
 
XVI 
 INGONISH 
 
 BACK of Smoky the road winds up hill 
 and down, through closely wooded 
 hollows and over barren highlands. 
 The sea is lost and the glory thereof, 
 the impressive and beautiful headlands that 
 abut upon the coast are not in view, the stu- 
 pendous front of Smoky has vanished. We 
 found it a road diversified by pleasing but 
 milder aspects of nature, where the highway 
 finally assumed the appearance of a grass-grown 
 lane, and where the trees were oaks, maples, 
 and birches. 
 
 Then came a roar like a great wind in the 
 trees and a glen deep and dark opened along 
 our right hand, a turbulent brook shouting from 
 its depths. 
 
 We followed this glen, now on its verge, 
 now so far away that only the voice of the 
 brook told where it was ; and finally we struck 
 once more across barren ridges, and through 
 hollows where the fir-tree reigned; and finally, 
 
 235 
 
 ^^n 
 
 I i 
 
 H 
 
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 i; 
 
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'i 
 
 IS* 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 a steep climb, a sudden turn, and before us lay 
 the far-famed, the lovely Ingonish. 
 
 It was near the hour of sunset that we 
 came upon Ingonish set in her mountains and 
 touched by the sea. There is a glory of north- 
 ern skies than which no southern splendour is 
 ever sweeter or more tender. That glory lay 
 upon the sea and the mountains of Ingonish as 
 we came upon them. 
 
 A river broke through the hills to the north 
 and found its way into a bay almost closed by 
 a cobblestone bar similar to that of English- 
 town, but on a much larger scale. Beyond the 
 bar lay another calm bay, while mountains of 
 exquisite beauty rose tier upon tier from the 
 very water's edge and half encircled the Bay of 
 Ingonish. We descended a steep hill that 
 turned on itself in a sudden curve, and soon 
 found ourselves on the shore facing the Ingo- 
 nish ferry, which is far more formidable than 
 the one at Englishtown. The surf ground the 
 pebbles on the shore, and we had to be rowed 
 over a long stretch of restless sea to the cob- 
 blestone bar. But Dan did not disappoint us; 
 he climbed into the ferryboat at Ingonish as 
 
 cleverly as he had into the one at Englishtown. 
 
 236 
 

 Ingonish 
 
 We were touched by the exceeding beauty 
 of the mountains as we looked back toward the 
 shore. To our left lay Smoky, for we now 
 saw the opposite side of that fine headland. 
 It swept up from the sea, but not in an 
 unbroken line, for on this side it was buttressed 
 by cliffs, while about its brow had collected the 
 mist wraiths that give it its name. In front of 
 us and to the right, mountain looked above 
 mountain encircling the water with gracious 
 forms of dlvinest colour, for over the earth the 
 setting sun haa spread a glow that made 
 poetical the mountains, deepening the shadows 
 in the hollows and softening the beautiful 
 outlines. In the sky above and reflecting over 
 land and sea was a strange and delicious har- 
 mony of dark purples, blues, and greens ; 
 while against the sky Smoky's red front caught 
 a deeper and a softer hue. 
 
 There was a sense of great calm and un- 
 utterable peace in the scene. The world 
 seemed too fair for strife or unrest of any kind. 
 It was a rare moment, and the South Bay of 
 Ingonish will always stay in our memories as 
 one of the loveliest scenes we ever beheld. It 
 is lovely not only at sunset or at sunrise, but 
 
 a37 
 
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 Down North and Up Along 
 
 what is n. re rare, even at midday. The 
 mountains have a marvellous charm of com- 
 position, the finest view being near the shore 
 of the mainland, though from any point it can- 
 not fail to give pleasure. 
 
 There is an island at the mouth of the 
 harbour which shuts it from the force of the sea, 
 and upon which stands the inevitable light- 
 house. 
 
 We crossed the ferry to the cobblestone 
 bar, where stood some fish-huts and a boat- 
 landing, for the boat stops here on its way 
 from Halifax to Newfoundland. 
 
 Beyond the bar was a beautiful beach pro- 
 tected by a rocky point of land from the force 
 of the sea, that otherwise would soon have 
 covered it with cobblestones. We were told 
 that the water here is as warm as that much 
 farther south, and that the bathing in the 
 summer months is delightful. 
 
 There was a tent close to the house where 
 
 we stayed, and here was a doctor, who, being 
 
 in need of rest and a little fishing, had been 
 
 spending the summer. It was to him we owed 
 
 our introduction to the art of angling. 
 
 It is true we had Mr. A.'s rod along, but it 
 
 238 
 
Ingonish 
 
 was still strapped to the back of the seat, for 
 our experience in fishing dated a long way 
 back and had been of a very simple nature, 
 and we had too much respect for the mysteries 
 of the craft to trust to the memories of our 
 childhood. But encouraged by the learned 
 doctor, we cast our line into the waters of the 
 bay, standing meanwhile on the loose boards 
 of a peculiarly rickety wharf, and drew forth 
 many smelts. 
 
 There is a curious and irresistible fascina- 
 tion connected with pulling fish out of the 
 water that admits of no reasonable explanation. 
 It ensnares the victim, regardless of sex or 
 previous habits, and to my bewilderment it 
 ensnared my companion, the most tender- 
 hearted of mortals, and who up to that time 
 had shuddered at the thought of touching a 
 cold, wet fish. 
 
 She was standing on the wharf watching 
 us when the doctor, ignorant of her distaste 
 for angling, in the kindness of his heart 
 put his rod into her hand, which she, out 
 of politeness, held for a moment. But this 
 moment was fatal. There came a twitch to 
 the line that sent a strange thrill through 
 
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 her, and with glowing eyes she — landed a 
 smelt. 
 
 The gods play strange pranks with us poor 
 mortals, and never did they play a stranger 
 than when they converted M. into the most 
 inveterate disciple of Izaak Walton through 
 the medium of one wretched little salt-water 
 smelt. 
 
 In this case, catching the fish had the very 
 agreeable sequence of cooking them out of 
 doors and eating them. 
 
 Our gypsy dinners cooked at noon by the 
 wayside were the one substantial meal of the 
 day, breakfast and supper consisting of oat- 
 meal porridge, sometimes without milk, and 
 toasted bread, sour, as a rule, though if we 
 asked for them, we could generally get an egg 
 and some salt fish. 
 
 But those midday meals ! the flavour of them, 
 with the aroma of the wood-fire clinging about 
 the viands, and the hunger that waited upon 
 them ! Even to think of them at this late day 
 is enough to quicken the appetite. 
 
 Up to this time we had found that the 
 canned or smoked meat of our native land 
 with the addition of ship biscuit, milk from a 
 
 240 
 
Ingonish 
 
 wayside cottage, and a penny's worth of Cape 
 Breton potatoes capable of being prepared in 
 many appetising ways completely satisfied us ; 
 but now all was changed. We entered upon 
 an era of camp cooking that revolutionised 
 our previous habits and converted us for all 
 time to come into exacting epicures. 
 
 On the stones by a brook-side we cooked 
 and ate the result of our first day's fishing, — 
 smelts, and a few small bass. Smelts are more 
 delicate in flavour than bass, and they possess 
 the great advantage of being without scales. 
 The scaHng of a small bass is infinitely more 
 entertaining to the onlooker than to the opera- 
 tor. The slippery little thing has to be held 
 by its slippery little tail while one scrapes 
 against the scales, and consequently the ex- 
 asperating object is flying through the air most 
 of the time. 
 
 The doctor did not spend much time fish- 
 ing off the wharf, as certain large brook trout 
 in his tent testified. He had preserved the 
 largest and displayed their dried forms with 
 exceeding great pride. He explained to us his 
 way of curing them and considered a pound 
 
 and a half a good size for a trout, though the 
 i6 241 
 
 
 at 
 
 
 
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 it 
 
 °i < 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 best of those on his table had weighed twice and 
 three times that much before they were cured, 
 so he said. He thought it a great pity that 
 trout shrink up and lose weight so when cured. 
 
 He had caught endless dozens of trout, the 
 smaller of which he had sent to distant friends, 
 but the largest he could not part with and kept 
 their smoked and shining forms spread out on 
 his table. 
 
 From this time forth our peace of mind was 
 gone ; we were the victims of the " gentle art 
 of angling," and looked at the rushing brooks 
 not so much to admire as to wonder about the 
 speckled trout hiding in their pools. 
 
 There are two Ingonishes. They are both 
 accented on the last syllable, and are separated 
 from each other by a long neck of land known 
 as Middlehead. 
 
 This neck cuts the broad bay, that would 
 otherwise exist, in two, and forms the lovely 
 South Bay and the almost equally charming 
 North Bay. To go from one to the other, a 
 distance of about eight miles, the road passes 
 across the mainland end of the neck, and one 
 loses sight of the water, though never far from 
 it. 
 
 242 
 
 ^1 
 
 \ 
 
n 
 
 Ingonish 
 
 Two miles from South Ingonish on the road 
 to the north, one crosses a bridge, and just the 
 other side of it an obscure track turns off to 
 the left. It is stony and rough, and in one 
 place rather alarmingly steep, but it passes 
 along a valley, mountain-guarded and traversed 
 by a brook. After following the track two or 
 three miles, the brook is found quite close to it, 
 and one comes almost under the great cliff of 
 rock known as Franey's chimney. This ap- 
 pears to have been split from the mountain 
 wall behind it, and stands forth a massive, frown- 
 ing form as though on guard over the wild 
 glen and the rugged cliffs of the mountains 
 about. 
 
 It is a wild place down there under Franey's 
 chimney, a lonely place where one would not 
 be surprised to see antlers or the clumsy form 
 of the bear that we knew frequented these 
 mountains. 
 
 Here we camped, — that is, we gave Dan a 
 limited freedom, — unpacked the fishing-rod, 
 which had suddenly become an object of vital 
 interest in our eyes, and took our way across a 
 stretch of meadow to the brook-side. We 
 soon came upon a series of dark pools close to 
 
 243 
 
 'ivi 
 
 H\ 
 
 ^1^' 
 
 \ \ 
 
 'I ■ •■ • 
 
 \. 
 
 ij . 
 
In 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 the shore, and with little expectation of draw- 
 ing forth anything so " said and sung " about 
 as a speckled trout, with our unskilled hands, 
 we hardened our hearts and strung upon the 
 hook a large angleworm, distinguished by a 
 magnificent wriggle, condoning the offence by 
 the reflection that according to the latest word 
 of science upon the nervous system of the 
 worm, it does not really suffer when thus mis- 
 used. This we seductively dropped into a 
 pool, with no real expectation, for there have 
 been many books writ upon trout-fishing, and 
 we supposed that only an artificial fly of strange 
 construction, thrown with secret and consum- 
 mate skill, could land one of these famous 
 creatures. And we knew ourselves for simple 
 folk with no wiles but such as could be offered 
 by a plain angleworm, a live one at that, with 
 not an artificial hair on its head. 
 
 Still, no sooner had our plebeian worm 
 entered the dark pool than there came a thrill- 
 ing twitch to the line, and we flun^ upon the 
 bank as pretty a red and gold speckled trout 
 as one could ask to see, thereby dispelling for 
 ever the almost religious mystery that had here- 
 tofore enveloped trout-fishing in our minds. 
 
 244 
 
ong 
 
 dF draw- 
 " about 
 d hands, 
 ipon the 
 ed by a 
 Fence by 
 ?st word 
 
 of the 
 ^us mis- 
 l into a 
 ere have 
 ing, and 
 F strange 
 consum- 
 
 famous 
 r simple 
 I offered 
 lat, with 
 
 I worm 
 a thrill- 
 pon the 
 d trout 
 ling for 
 id here- 
 minds. 
 
 Catching Trout for Dixner 
 
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"jPMIIlB^liailriMilnr liftfiTM 
 
 ..■'It 
 
 fr li. 
 
 i I 
 
 I I 
 
Ingonish 
 
 We then and there made the important dis- 
 covery that, notwithstanding the glamour of 
 romance in which the books have enveloped 
 them, brook trout are mere fish, after all. They 
 swallow a worm with a hook inside just as the 
 " sunfish " in the mill-pond of our childhood 
 used to swallow a bent pin under the same 
 circumstances. We afterward wished we had 
 tried a bent pin on the trout, to complete the 
 confusion of those writers who have for so 
 long a time been imposing on a too credu- 
 lous public. 
 
 These thoughts did not trouble us at the 
 moment, however, for, after all, there is a magi- 
 cal fascination in a brook trout, which can no 
 more be resisted than it can be explained. 
 
 Probably no trout is ever half so beautiful as 
 the first one caught. Our acquaintance with 
 them heretofore had been in picture-books, 
 or nicely browned on the table, but here lay a 
 live one in the green grass, all speckled and 
 coloured like a rainbow, and no wonder great 
 Franey leaned out of the sky to see. 
 
 There was but one rod, and two ot us, and 
 we took turns and agonised between, knowing 
 so well we could get the proverbial big one out 
 
 245 
 
 fH 
 
 I' 
 
 \ \\ 
 
 i 
 
 5J 
 
I i 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 of the pool, if it had only happened to be our 
 turn. But when our turn came, we never got 
 the big one. We caught any number of small 
 ones, however, and lost more than we caught, 
 for they had a way of jumping off the hook in 
 mid-air and falling back into the water with a 
 shake and a flirt. The largest ones invariably 
 did this, and did it with such apparent intention 
 and malice that we began to think there might 
 be something in the books, after all. 
 
 They were so pretty we hated to cook them ; 
 some were dark in colour with deep-coloured 
 spots ; and some were golden-brown, almost 
 as though saturated with light, with lighter 
 and brighter spots, and these were the prettiest. 
 We did cook them ; and what could be daintier 
 or more delicious than the snowy-white or 
 salmon-pink morsels that came out of the 
 frying-pan ? We ate all we caught, and would 
 not like to say how many that was. 
 
 Nor did this end the adventures of that day 
 under Franey. While resting after our delect- 
 able dinner and the exciting events of the morn- 
 ing, we saw a small party of men and boys 
 advancing down the glen. They were burdened 
 with something they bore upon poles resting on 
 
 246 
 
Ingonish 
 
 their shoulders, and we went to see what it was. 
 What was our surprise to find the skins and 
 flesh of two bears which they had just killed 
 on the back or* the mountain beneath which we 
 were resting. They were young bears, and 
 had been feeding for many days on the blue- 
 berries that cover the mountains ; they were 
 very fat and their flesh was good, and one of 
 the men cut us a piece from a hind-quarter. 
 This was the first fresh meat we had seen since 
 leaving Baddeck, and we took it, though not 
 without misgivings. It seemed too bad to 
 have killed the little bears playing among the 
 blueberries on the mountain-top ; and then 
 one hesitates to eat the flesh of a creature that 
 can be taught to walk upright, and even to 
 dance. Still, there was another side to it, and 
 we no doubt had reason to be thankful that 
 the bears had not taken a notion to hunt us, 
 while the men on the mountains were hunting 
 them. To an unprejudiced mind it is as fair 
 for people to eat bears as for bears to eat peo- 
 ple, the only question being which can catch 
 the other. 
 
 So we took the bear-meat and also a pail of 
 the blueberries the men had picked, for they 
 
 247 
 
 h 
 
 , r 
 
W I 
 
 
 ir 
 
 Down North and Up A long 
 
 had got not only the hears but the berries the 
 bears had wanted to get. They were enor- 
 mous blueberries ; we never saw so large be- 
 fore nor since, and they were sweet and juicy. 
 The bears know what they are about when 
 they go to the mountains for blueberries. 
 
 We entered North Ingonish, as we had en- 
 tered South Ingonish, toward the end of the 
 afternoon. Its bay is more open to the sea, 
 and has not the inner harbour of the South 
 Bay. The mountains are about it, more dis- 
 tant, but still lovely, and before it lies a beach 
 of exceeding beauty and grandeur. It sweeps 
 in a long and beautiful curve half-way around 
 the bay, lines of splendid breakers rolling in. 
 It is a wide beach of fine sand and slopes 
 gently to the sea, where the snowy breakers 
 repeat the exquisite curve of the shore. 
 
 North Ingonish is very beautiful, though 
 quite different from South Ingonish. Its more 
 distant mountains were lovely in the evening 
 light in which we first saw them and its circling 
 beach and wide bay. Smoky was visible, 
 though softened by the distance, as was also 
 the contour of the surrounding headlands. 
 
 We were not prepared for the astonishing 
 
 248 
 
Ingonish 
 
 beauty of the Ingonishes, nor did it seem pos- 
 sible they could lie there so lonely in their 
 loveliness, unvisited by pleasure-seeking man. 
 
 The Ingonish people are fishermen, and are 
 principally Irish and Scotch Catholics. Like 
 Englishtown the place was known long ago, 
 and was at one time a flourishing French fish- 
 ing settlement, but war required victims, and 
 the men of Ingonish were drawn away to fight 
 instead of fish, and the place, like St. Anne, was 
 finally wrested from the French by the English 
 of Commodore Warren's fleet. 
 
 Traces of the period of French prosperity 
 are said still to exist, though we did not know 
 about them at the time, and no one volun- 
 teered information concerning the relics of the 
 past. It seems that a large church was built 
 here, and in 1 849 a bell weighing not less than 
 two hundred pounds was dug out of the sand 
 of the beach. It bore a French inscription 
 and was marked St. Malo, 1729, and was said 
 to have had a remarkably clear tone which 
 must have been heard far out to sea. It was 
 carried away to Sydney, which the people of 
 Ingonish never should have allowed. 
 
 In 1740, the records tell us, Ingonish was 
 
 249 
 
 i 
 
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 A^ 
 
 ■ ,1 
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 '1 
 
 1; 
 
 ^1 
 
 Im 
 
 laB 
 
 B i 
 
 Si 
 
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 1 1 
 
 
 Down North and Up ytlong 
 
 the second town of Cape Breton, and its fleet 
 caught 1^,560 quintals of fisli. This is tliat 
 Niganiche where the French in olden time 
 went a-fishing, anil wliere a {)aternal govern- 
 ment ordered them away to the safe harbour 
 of Port Dauphin, as St. Anne was called, after 
 the fifteenth of August. 
 
 " From Port Dauphin we arrived at Niga- 
 niche," says Pinchon, *' which \^ only a road, 
 where the vessels are far from being safe ; but 
 there is great plenty of codfish. Yet as it 
 must be deserted at a certain season, and the 
 country thereabouts is quite barren, tiiere are 
 hardly any dwellings upon the place. Even 
 those few inhabitants are obliged to fetch their 
 wood for firing from Port Daujihin." 
 
 Ingonish may well have discourjiged a 
 people obliged to live on what they found 
 there. But the day will come when its beauty 
 will bring it a larger revenue than its codfish 
 ever have brought or ever will bring. 
 
 The highlands back of Ingonish used to be 
 noted for the large game found there. Caribou 
 and moose are said to have once existed in 
 almost incredible numbers. But this is not a 
 
 pleasant topic, for the deer were slaughtered 
 
 250 
 
Ingonish 
 
 in the most ruthless manner because their hides 
 brought the sum of ten shillings each ; and 
 what mattered the extermination of the noblest 
 animals of the country compared to ten shill- 
 ings in a man's pocket? 
 
 We are told that in 1729 over nine thou- 
 saml moose were killed for their skins alone, 
 and that for many years this wholesale slaughter 
 was kept up unciicckcd. So great was the 
 stench from the decaying bodies that sailors 
 knew by that alone when they were approach- 
 ing the north shore of Cape Breton. 
 
 It is needless to comment upon the result. 
 All too late a body of troops was stationed at 
 Ingonish to protect the moose, but there were 
 few left to need protection, and since then the 
 unequal contest has gone on, Indians and 
 sportsmen combining to destroy the noble 
 animal, until now it and the caribou are almost 
 exterminated in the highlands about Ingonish. 
 
 We saw no quails in our travels, for w; were 
 a little too far north for them, but the Canada 
 or spruce grouse in small companies ran along 
 the road in front of the horse exhibiting very 
 little fear. 
 
 Ingonish is not wholly inaccessible, nor is 
 
 251 
 
 
 ^i 
 
 
 \ 
 
 4 
 
 V 
 
lil 
 
 J 
 
 f I 
 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 North Ingonish devoid of comforts for the 
 visitor. 
 
 A small steamboat, the " Harlow," runs from 
 Halifax to Newfoundland, stopping at Bad- 
 deck, Englishtown, South and North Ingonish, 
 and north of these places at Aspy Bay and 
 Bay St. Lawrence. 
 
 The " Harlow " carries a siren which once 
 was the cause of great consternation along this 
 lovely coast, for the boat and her siren came 
 without warning, and the people one night were 
 terrified by a wild and awful yell as of some 
 frightful demon rushing in from the sea. They 
 are said to have fled inland and remained in 
 the forest trembling through the night, until 
 daylight gave them courage to creep forth and 
 question the source of the frightful noise. 
 Unexpectedly to hear the " Harlow's" siren 
 along that lonely shore might well cause a thrill 
 to any nerves. 
 
 At Ingonish Is the first public-house after 
 leaving Paddeck, — a pleasant place on a beau- 
 tiful site, with sea and mountains before the 
 door, and very well kept. 
 
 This house is approached through a lane 
 bordered by fish-flakes of a size intermediate 
 
 352 
 
/;; 
 
 'g 
 
 onts. 
 
 between those of Digby and French River, 
 and upon them were drying the everlasting cod. 
 The family, too, keeps the store, that opens on 
 the lane, and doubtless the post-office is there, 
 for the postman drives in his two-wheeled cart 
 from Baddeck up along when the weather is 
 fit, but in winter he carries his budget on a 
 sledge drawn by dogs. 
 
 There are wharves for the fishing-boats at 
 North Ingonish ; and these, with the boats 
 lying about, give it a pleasing touch of the 
 picturesque. 
 
 Ingonish is the end of the tourists* explora- 
 tions as a rule. Few find their way thither, 
 still fewer go north of there ; and as we looked 
 toward the mysterious and yet distant Cape 
 North, we had the pleasurable feeling that it at 
 least was all our own. 
 
 % 
 
 S" 
 
 iji' 
 
 »53 
 
 \ 
 
 V: 11 
 
1*1 
 
 XVII 
 THE HALF WAY HOUSE 
 
 FROM Ingonish to Asp/ Bay is a 
 frightful country, almost uninhabited, 
 excepting for the settlement of Neils 
 Harbour, which lies on the rocky 
 coast a mile from the Half Way House. 
 
 The Half Way House is eighteen miles 
 from Ingonish and was put in the wilderness 
 by the government for the succour of those 
 obliged to pass that way, for it is said that 
 formerly people perished on the mountains or 
 in the swamps. In bad weather it must be 
 very difficult to cross that country ; and the 
 Half Way House with its warmth and good 
 cheer n uFt be a welcome sight to the weary 
 and half-frozen traveller. 
 
 Climbing the hill out of Ingonish, we looked 
 constantly back at the beautiful and unfolding 
 views. The road was so stony and weather- 
 worn that part of the time we preferred to 
 walk, and Dan preferred that we should. We 
 came to an occasional lonely starved little 
 
 254 
 
^11 i 
 
 T^ie Half Way House 
 
 farm, where the women with their kerchiefs 
 and gleaming sickles were at work in the yel- 
 low barley patches. We stopped each time to 
 pass a word and see their faces lighten, as we 
 told them Parson Gibbons had sent us to see 
 their country and had sent messages to them. 
 They all asked eagerly when he was coming 
 back. 
 
 We crossed a bridge and turned into the 
 bushes to let a waggon pass. Instead of pass- 
 ing, it stopped in a friendly way while we told 
 our names, where we came from, and whither 
 we were going. It contained Mrs. Morri- 
 son of Green Cove and Mr. Timmons, and 
 they were on their way to Mrs. Timmons's 
 mother's, for we, too, had learned to be polite 
 and ask questions. 
 
 Soon there were no more barley patches and 
 the road dwindled .o a mere track where the 
 horse waded up to his middle in grass, ever- 
 lasting, and golden-rod, and finally plunged 
 into the dismal swamp that crosses the country 
 here. We laboured for several miles through 
 as desolate a region as one need care to 
 know. It was for the most part an alder- 
 choked swampj the road cut through a solid 
 
 255 
 
 ;( 
 
 .•**.«•«« - **-* ♦ ,, . 
 
 "trtH*, 4»-- -•*■•' 
 
 -y».~:,- 
 
' T) 
 
 
 H 
 
 1 1 
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 I 
 
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 ,1 
 
 . i'! 
 
 ^'! 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 ^^^.^ i II I I ■!■■■■ I I ■ ■■ . I I . 11 ■— ».i HI — .i-.-i. Ill m 
 
 wall of gloomy green, the wheels oftentimes 
 hub-deep in mud, while stones in the ruts 
 constantly canted the waggon to one side or 
 the other. This sort of enjoyment was diver- 
 sified by more open places where mud and 
 stones gave place to all stones, and where were 
 sepulchral reaches of dead trees, their branches 
 all fallen away, and the trunks and limbs shin- 
 ing ghostly white. From time to time we 
 caught glimpses of stony and barren high- 
 lands, only cu plunge hopelessly into alders 
 and mud again. We named this charming 
 road the Melancholy Way of the Alders, and 
 whoever passes that way will agree that it 
 deserves its name. 
 
 We met no one, and so we shall never know 
 what would have happened if we had, in that 
 narrow alley where one could scarcely have 
 pulled out of the deep ruts even if there had 
 been any place to pull to. 
 
 Many stories are told of this swamp ; one 
 
 is that whoever steps into it cannot step out 
 
 again until the next day. We also heard of 
 
 the traveller who, passing the gloomy road one 
 
 summer night, saw a light in the swamp, and 
 
 upon stopping and shouting elicited the infor- 
 
 256 
 
M 
 
 i 
 
 The Half Way House 
 
 ■'- — - ■ -. ^ 
 
 mation that it proceeded from the pipe of an 
 old woman who, having inadvertently stepped 
 in and knowing the legend, was philosophically 
 biding her time and making the best of a bad 
 matter by solacing the dreary hours with her 
 pipe until daylight should come to break the 
 spell and set her free. 
 
 This recalled another story that shows how 
 good a thing superstition is in other people, 
 if one only knows how to make use of it. It 
 is said the Highlanders of Cape North have 
 more or less faith in bogies and a correspond- 
 ing fear of them. Somewhere along the coast 
 is a rocky seat known as the devil's chair, and 
 a strange light was frequently seen here at 
 night, to the blood-curdling horror of the 
 beholder. 
 
 The same traveller, who was not a High- 
 lander, and who had no fear of bogies, one 
 night shied a stone, all too well aimed, which 
 extinguished the light and raised a frightened 
 howl from the bogy, who doubtless thought 
 all bogy-land was after her in earnest, for the 
 pseudo-bogy was a poor old woman too old 
 to work with any sort of satisfaction to her- 
 self, and whose son, being a hard man, com- 
 17 257 
 
 i 
 
 It 
 
li 
 
 1 
 
 1 i 
 'i 
 
 i 
 
 \i 
 
 \' 1 1 1 
 
 \> 
 
 1 1 
 
 1 
 
 J. .,; 
 
 i 
 
 t A 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 pelled her to work for his satisfaction. So 
 she found it convenient to become bedridden, 
 thus shifting the responsibility of work to 
 younger shoulders, and was only able to walk 
 at night, when undetected she would steal 
 forth and seat herself in the devil's chair for 
 the comfort of a pipe. Her discoverer prom- 
 ised not to betray her, gave her a new pipe 
 and a supply of tobacco, and it is to be hoped 
 her hard son will never read these lines, at 
 least not until the poor old soul has gone 
 where she cannot be called forth to work at 
 the bidding of any man. 
 
 We floundered slowly along through the 
 Melancholy Way of the Alders, cheering each 
 other with ghost stories, and about noon came 
 out of it, and crossed the bridge over Black 
 Brook ; of all the streams we had seen the most 
 forbidding, fascinating, and rock-bound. It was 
 far, far below us and made its way between mas- 
 sive and broken walls of rock. Trees closely 
 bordered the rocks above and clung in the 
 crevices, overleaning and shadowing the chasm 
 below. Altogether, it was a sinister-looking 
 brook and as black as night. 
 
 But we had a sudden inner vision of trout 
 
 ?58 
 
 kli 
 
h 
 
 The Half Way House 
 
 P—— ^ll" !■ ■■ ■■.■—■ I ■■■ I. II i ■ ■_ — -II — ■! I I II ■>■——§ 
 
 in its pools ! Close to the pools at one side 
 lay a flat table of rock, where one could stand 
 or sit at ease, if once it could be reached. The 
 sun shone brightly, and it was the wrong time 
 of day for trout, as well as being too late in the 
 season, yet there was an irresistible fascination 
 in those black pools. If the trout were not 
 there, where were they ? 
 
 By clinging to the roots of trees and pro- 
 ceeding with caution, we were able to scale 
 the rocks and reach the flat rock by the pools. 
 We congratulated ourselves upon the posses- 
 sion of worms, for they certainly v/ere a more 
 natural food for fish than " flies " made of all 
 sorts of indigestible things, and no doubt Cape 
 Breton trout had not been educated up to 
 " flies." So we cast a worm, but it had no 
 time to enter the water, for even as it touched 
 the surface it was caught by a trout and swal- 
 lowed, hook and all. With pride unspeakable 
 we pulled him in, struggling so that we trembled 
 for the rod and line, for we knew not how 
 to " land " a fish other than just to pull him 
 out of the water with as few preliminaries as 
 possible. 
 
 We put him in a damp cavern in the rock 
 
 259 
 
 
 h 
 
 W 
 
¥' 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 behind us, and tried again. The result was 
 the same, except that we lost the fish. We 
 now knew that the despised " fly " was the 
 scientific bait for this variety of trout, and be- 
 gan to long for one, a multi-coloured creature 
 not born from an egg, made of strong things 
 that could not be swallowed nor torn off, and 
 in whose care the hook would not come un- 
 baited. In short, down there on the flat rock 
 before the trout pools of Black Brook, we 
 wished to be delivered from the ignominy of 
 angleworms. The truth is, we were fly- 
 fishing with worms, and our newborn fisher- 
 man's pride rebelled. As fast as we threw, the 
 fish jumped at the hook ; they scarcely seemed 
 to know whether it was baited or not, and the 
 smallest remnant of worm answered as well as 
 the plumpest morsel. They were not as large 
 as those on the show table in the doctor's tent, 
 but they were large enough ; we could not have 
 secured them had they been any larger; we 
 could not as it was, and lost a great many 
 more than we caught. It was very stimulating 
 down there surrounded by the great rocks, 
 with the black water rushing swiftly down- 
 stream, and the still pools lying in the shadow 
 
 260 
 
 ?t , I . 
 
The Half JFay House 
 
 -■ 
 
 of the rocks, while at every cast of the line 
 the gorgeous dark-skinned trout with their 
 flashing jewel-spots leaped at the hook and 
 either came fluttering wildly to our hand, or 
 to our equal regret and pleasure freed them- 
 selves in mid-air and fell flashing back into 
 the water. 
 
 It was long before we could tear ourselves 
 away from the spot ; then we climbed the diffi- 
 cult cliff, and journeyed on to another deep- 
 down brook near which was an open grassy 
 space fit to camp in. Dan was given his oats, 
 and we took the long rope that had tied the 
 bag to the back of the waggon and let our tin 
 pail down over the rail of the bridge to the far- 
 away stream of sparkling cold water. Such 
 water as comes down these brooks, sweet, cold, 
 clear, full of sparkle, it seems almost living, 
 and seems, too, to give life to him who drinks. 
 We took a long, refreshing draught, and then 
 prepared our meal of fresh-caught trout, blue- 
 berries we had ourselves picked from the 
 mountains, and bear's meat. We were agree- 
 ably disappointed in this meat ; it was delicate 
 in flavour, and when cooked until tender, for it 
 was somewhat tough, was as good as any meat. 
 
 ! i 
 
 ■'J: 
 
 m 
 
 \\ 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 Being tough, it was better stewed than broiled 
 and we still think with longing of the bear's 
 meat stews we concocted under the fir-trees of 
 Cape Breton with the aid of the sparkling 
 brook water and the red-skinned potatoes M. 
 bought each day from a wayside cottage. 
 
 While we were preparing our Black Brook 
 trout, along came a Highlander leading a cow, 
 and he stopped, full of curiosity. We showed 
 him our fish and he said they did very well, 
 that Black Brook was the place for trout, but 
 that he had caught one measuring twenty-two 
 inches. Then he took the rod and handled it 
 curiously, particularly the reel. " This," he 
 said, tapping it, " I suppose will be a reel. I 
 have lived a good many years, but I never saw 
 one and never expected to ; " and he unwound 
 the line and wound it up again. All this 
 time the cow was tossing her head and trying 
 to pull away, but he clung to the rope and 
 the rod, from time to time requesting the cow 
 to " sh ! " At length he and the cow went 
 on their way, no doubt with much food for 
 meditation. 
 
 It was as usual nearing the twilight hour 
 when we drew near our destination. Breaking 
 
 262 
 
 ti 
 
 * ft *.*^*.. «-„■ • 
 
ong^ 
 
 broiled 
 e bear's 
 trees of 
 Darkling 
 oes M. 
 
 ; Brook 
 
 T a cow, 
 
 showed 
 
 ;ry well, 
 
 out, but 
 
 ;nty-two 
 
 ndled it 
 
 his," he 
 
 reel. I 
 
 ver saw 
 
 nwound 
 
 \.ll this 
 
 trying 
 
 )pe and 
 
 the cow 
 
 w went 
 
 Dod for 
 
 It hour 
 reaking 
 
 
 
 si 
 
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 /: 
 
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 S| 
 
The Half Way House 
 
 # '■( 
 
 through the woods at last, we came upon the 
 Half Way House standing on an open high 
 place. 
 
 The Half Way House is just what such a 
 refuge should be, warm, clean, and hospitable. 
 The door opens into a large kitchen with a 
 generous stove on one side and a floor that 
 shines from much scrubbing. The McPher- 
 sons keep the place and have for many a year, 
 though Mrs. McPherson is still bonnie and 
 charming. 
 
 Mr. McPherson was away at the time of our 
 visit, on his yearly trip to Halifax, to lay in 
 provisions for the winter, of which forethought 
 there is certainly need. 
 
 Besides Mrs. McPherson, a tall Highlander 
 who looked after Dan's comfort, and a young 
 woman who helped about the house, we were 
 the only beings in that distant and lonely spot, 
 excepting a white dog with a black head and a 
 tortoise-shell cat with a tortoise-shell kitten, 
 which she constantly licked and which afflicted 
 her motherly heart by frequently flying ofl^ to 
 an enclosure where the cows came at night, and 
 racing around the top rail out of reach of the 
 maternal tongue. 
 
 263 
 
 «]«> 
 
 i! 
 
 iir 
 
 m 
 
 j. 
 
 rvl 
 
Il 
 
 u 
 
 f 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 The Half Way House stands on the cleared 
 brow of a high hill with somewhat sombre 
 though rather pleasing views of denuded high- 
 lands and interminable reaches of spruce, fir, and 
 hemlock on three sides ; while the fourth side, 
 toward which the house faces, overlooks the sea, 
 whose surf is heard pounding against the rocks 
 a mile away. Down there on the rocks by the 
 sea can also be seen one corner of Neils Har- 
 bour. For here, in the loneliest and most 
 dangerous part of that lonely and dangerous 
 coast, lies the little settlement of English 
 people who were the peculiar care of their 
 devoted friend. Parson Gibbons. For these 
 people came from Newfoundland, and are not, 
 like most of the settlers of Cape Breton, High- 
 land Scotch. 
 
 We found the air of this northern coast 
 splendidly exhilarating. Although it was now 
 well along in September and the air was spark- 
 ling with cold, particularly in the early morning, 
 we never felt chilly. Its effect was to make 
 the blood flow faster, and there was none of the 
 sense of chill and depression one so often feels 
 after driving for several hours in the same 
 
 temperature in southern New England. The 
 
 264 
 
 fl 
 

 The Half W^ay House 
 
 air of "Cape North" is alone worth going 
 there for. 
 
 Mrs. McPherson cooked eggs and salt fish 
 and potatoes for our supper and spread the 
 table in the sunny little sitting-room that 
 opened out of the kitchen and whose floor was 
 carpeted with many rugs of agreeable design. 
 We persuaded her to join us, and added blue- 
 berries, apples, and coffee from our stores. 
 
 Mrs. McPherson gave us our first lesson in 
 Gaelic, and from her we learned to say " good- 
 night" and to ask for bread, milk, potatoes, and 
 oats in that unmusical tongue. 
 
 She also initiated us into the mysteries of rug- 
 making, and told us how dogwood bark makes 
 a gray colouring ; " crackle," which is, as far as 
 we could make out, a kind of moss, yields 
 brown ; while hemlock also makes a pretty 
 shade of brown ; and a weed which we could 
 not make out at all from her description yields 
 a yellow dye. We were glad to know these 
 things, and to examine the charming rugs on 
 the floor, made from old rags dyed so pleas- 
 antly by the juices of the grim forest, and to 
 learn the individual history of each one. 
 
 In the evening came a crowd of berry-pickers 
 
 265 
 
 I 
 
 i',' 
 
 'I 
 
 jr 
 
 m 
 
 \i 
 
 '1 . 
 
^1 
 
 f I 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 with full buckets. They were young men and 
 girls who had been out on the mountains to 
 the blueberry barrens which are famous about 
 here. It seemed to be a sort of annual picnic 
 which lasted two or three days, they coming at 
 sunset to the Half Way House and at sunrise 
 going forth to the mountains. 
 
 They took supper at a long table in the 
 kitchen, and we were sorry to see they did 
 not fare as well as we, for they had only the 
 never-failing tea and toast, rather an insufficient 
 meal, one should think, after a long c.^ on the 
 mountains. But the bread at the Half Way 
 House is at least not sour, and tea and toast is 
 the fare to which they are accustomed, and 
 which they would have had in their own homes 
 no matter how hard the labour of the day. 
 
 The berry-pickers talked Gaelic at table, 
 and after tea the girls kept silent or whispered 
 to one another, while the men smoked their 
 pipes and talked to one another — always in 
 Gaelic. As they sat ranged along the sides of 
 the kitchen on benches and chairs, they strongly 
 recalled the poor whites or " Crackers " of the 
 far South. They had the same starved-looking 
 
 bodies, and no doubt opposite severities of 
 
 266 
 
 W 
 
The Half Way House 
 
 climate and the same lack of proper nourish- 
 ment had produced the same result. They 
 went to bed in the attic, where the men slept 
 on the floor, but the girls stowed themselves 
 in a small room wherein was a wide bed. 
 
 Early in the morning we were wakened by 
 the berry-pickers getting up. We wished we 
 could understand their speech and know what 
 it was they talked to one another about. What 
 is there to talk about, we should like to know, 
 where there is no daily paper, no fashions, no 
 new books, nor opera ? How can they even 
 get material enough to make gossip about 
 their neighbours ? 
 
 The road to Neils Harbour is stony and 
 downhill and there is not much to be seen 
 from it. One of Cape North's never-failing 
 brooks breaks through the mountains and 
 tumbles into the harbour along the course of 
 the road, though it is for the most part con- 
 cealed by intervening vegetation. The harbour 
 is but a little cove jutting into the land and 
 making a summer haven for the fishing-fleet, 
 but in winter it is packed full of ice, as is every 
 cranny of this northern coast. It was over the 
 
 ice of this harbour and around the ice of the 
 
 267 
 
 
 ij 
 
I u 
 
 .*:-, 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 cruel shore from Ingonish to the harbour that 
 Parson Gibbons crept on hands and knees when 
 the road was totally impassable, one memorable 
 Christmas day of long ago, and all to bring the 
 cheer of his presence to the fisher-folk of 
 Neils Harbour. Perhaps he feared that unless 
 the Christmas-tide could light up the world 
 for them a little, they would not have cour- 
 age to live through the winter, and one won- 
 ders how they do manage it. It is so remote 
 and forbidding in summer that one shudders 
 to imagine what it must be through the long 
 icy winter. 
 
 Yet it is, perhaps, the most picturesque 
 settlement on the whole coast. There is a 
 narrow space of lowland near the water, with a 
 hill rising sharply behind it. 
 
 A point of land ending in a bluff on the sea- 
 side holds back the waves and forms a cove 
 suited to the needs of the fishing-boats ; and 
 around the shore of this cove is a picturesque 
 jumble of low fish-huts, flakes, boats in all 
 stages of decomposition as well as those in full 
 vigour of usefulness, tar, chains, evidences of 
 fish everywhere. The high grass-grown bluff 
 
 that abuts out into the water beyond all this, is 
 
 268 
 
 f 
 
The Half Way House 
 
 ^ ,, — ■ ■ — ..■■■ — „ 
 
 covered as well by many rows offtakes, and from 
 it a fine view of the wild coast is obtainable. 
 
 The dwelling-houses of Neils Harbour were 
 miserable shanties, many of them more like 
 temporary shelters than permanent homes. 
 Most of them stood on the hillside, and the 
 upper ones were reached by a path through the 
 dooryards of those lower down. Poor and 
 mean as they were outside, they were yet worse 
 inside. The rooms were painfully bare, even 
 the hitherto never-failing rugs being absent in 
 most of them. Compared to them, the simple 
 cottages of the Highlanders seemed abodes of 
 luxury. The people are so desperately poor 
 because there is no farming land at all, and 
 there is no work obtainable but the very un- 
 certain labour of fishing in the sea. They get 
 very little for the fish they catch, not even as 
 much as they are worth, we were told; for 
 here, as elsewhere in remote country places, 
 the wealth of the people flows into the coffers 
 of the local storekeeper. He sets his own 
 price on what they bring him and too fre- 
 quently pays in merchandise of his own im- 
 portation, so that often the poor fisher-folk 
 
 receive no money at all for their labour. 
 
 269 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
'I 
 
 f ! 
 
 f- f 
 
 li ii 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 The "wood for firing" in this bleak camp 
 is brought from the mountains on sledges 
 drawn by dogs. 
 
 It was a lowering day, with clouds settling 
 and a cold wind blowing, when we visited Neils 
 Harbour, and no doubt this is its characteristic 
 and predominating aspect. 
 
 The coast is frightful to look upon, with its 
 breastwork of sea-worn rock. We had not 
 known how cruel a rock-bound coast could be 
 until we saw those sinister and threatening 
 forms. A vessel forced near shore by stress 
 of weather would be broken like a toy. Al- 
 most within hand-reach of the land men's lives 
 have been dashed out and no aid possible. 
 
 On this wild and sullen coast, on a great 
 rock looking over the leaden sea to the north, 
 we suddenly came upon Mr. Gibbons's little 
 brown church standing there, an invitation and 
 a promise. Following the track that went past 
 the church, the road came down so close to 
 the frightful rocks that we were almost upon 
 them. 
 
 Beyond Neils Harbour there is an almost 
 
 impassable road to New Haven farther along 
 
 the coast. We did not attempt to go there, as 
 
 270 
 
long 
 
 ak camp 
 . sledges 
 
 s settling 
 ted Neils 
 racteristic 
 
 1, with its 
 : had not 
 : could be 
 lireatening 
 by stress 
 toy. Al- 
 iens lives 
 ssible. 
 )n a great 
 the north, 
 ons's little 
 itation and 
 t went past 
 o close to 
 most upon 
 
 an almost 
 
 ther along 
 
 leo there, as 
 
 The Half Way House 
 
 we could see the place from where we were, -— 
 a few houses scattered on the shore that sug- 
 gested anything but a haven. 
 
 It must be a cold and dangerous port for 
 the poor mariners of life who have found their 
 way there. Its pitiful old name of Hungry 
 Cove no doubt better expresses the facts of 
 life there than the better-sounding New 
 Haven. 
 
 But the people here, in spite of their fright- 
 ful poverty, have a frank and pleasant manner 
 very different from the impenetrable and silent 
 demeanour of the Scotch. We met a little boy 
 and girl gathering bits of wood by the roadside, 
 pretty, fragile creatures ; and when we spoke to 
 them they answered promptly and intelligently, 
 and with a pretty eagerness to tell us what we 
 wanted to know. 
 
 We spoke to the people we met, and it was 
 pathetic as well as beautiful to see the worn 
 faces lighten at the messages we bore from 
 their beloved pastor. 
 
 One woman, upon hearing we had recently 
 
 seen Mr. Gibbons, came running from her 
 
 house with the tears raining down her face, 
 
 blessing him at every step and begging us to 
 
 271 
 
 \ 
 
 
\ih- 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 tell him that her husband had finally become 
 totally blind. She was not begging for sym- 
 pathy nor asking for alms. All she wanted 
 was to speak to us and receive a sympathetic 
 touch of the hand. These people, seeing no 
 one, expect nothing but the inexorable working 
 out of thei. lives by such means as lie about 
 them. We found that this woman and her 
 husband had only what she could earn by the 
 labour of her hands, and what that was can be 
 imagined when one considers the impossibility 
 of getting a living here even by the hard work 
 of men's hands. We astonished her by a gift 
 which though small must have seemed to her 
 like succour dropped from the skies, and we 
 went back to the Half Way House filled with 
 a sense of the misery and courage of the people 
 of Neils Harbour. We had there seen more 
 smiles, more cheerfulness and cordiality, than 
 anywhere else in our journey through Cape 
 North. 
 
 It is a question of race temperament, and 
 the subject is a very wonderful one when one 
 stops to consider it. 
 
 373 
 
 I 
 
XVIII 
 ASPY BAY 
 
 THE road to the north of the Half 
 Way House continues through the 
 wilderness. We found it very rough, 
 and there were no views to beguile 
 the way other than endless woods of evergreens 
 spread over the mountains, dismal swamps, 
 and stony hills where ruts were deep and 
 pitch holes were many. 
 
 In this wilderness we passed two men in a 
 waggon. They drew into the bushes to give 
 us way, and we saw in their faces a desire to 
 ask us our names, where we came from, and 
 where we were going, so we stopped and an- 
 swered. One of the men then forced upon 
 our acceptance three or four small and very 
 hard apples of which he was proud, because 
 they came from his own tree. 
 
 In the midst of this frightful wilderness we 
 found a French settlement of three or four 
 houses. 
 
 Why it was there among dead trees, let who 
 can, answer. The miserable shanties and their 
 '^ 273 
 
 3 
 
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 i! 
 
 II 
 
 I'M 
 
 In >i 
 
 II H 
 
 y 
 
 i 
 
 1 i 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 n '« 
 
 jji' 
 
 it 
 
 •.i '* 
 
 *■ 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 surroundings were squalid and unsightly, with- 
 out a touch of picturesqueness. We found a 
 woman there, a gaunt woman who talked her 
 French patois with the vivacity of her race. 
 She was the mother of little children, one ^ 
 young babe. It certainly looked as if the 
 family would have to subsist upon stones 
 during the winter. And yet she talked with 
 vivacity. That is what it is to be French. 
 
 These people, we learned later, were descend- 
 ants of the Acadians. They themselves did 
 not know it, nor how they came to be among 
 English-speaking people. They had lost all 
 tradition of themselves. They only knew that 
 they had just come from islands in the north, 
 where life was too hard even for them, be- 
 cause there was no wood there. 
 
 As we went on, it looked as though all the 
 beauty had been left behind. Ahead of us lay 
 a straight blue wall, of which we at times 
 caught glimpses. It appeared to cut off the 
 way to the north ; it rose up ever and anon 
 menacing and mysterious. Did we pass be- 
 yond it } And what then ? What was there 
 to be seen in this unpeopled and ever increas- 
 ingly dreary wilderness? 
 
 274 
 
i\ 
 
 stones 
 1 with 
 li. 
 
 scend- 
 es did 
 among 
 ost all 
 ;w that 
 north, 
 m, be- 
 all the 
 us lay 
 times 
 bff the 
 anon 
 ss be- 
 there 
 creas- 
 
 Aspy Bay 
 
 As on the road to the Half Way House, we 
 travelled miles without seeing a human habi- 
 tation. But finally there came a change. 
 Barley fields and patches of oats began to 
 appear. Houses stood discreetly back from 
 the road with intervening meadow before the 
 doors. The flat wall ahead broke up, and we 
 now and again caught glimpses of a fairy world 
 that astonished and delighted us. Mr. Gib- 
 bons had assured us that the farther north we 
 went, the finer would be the scenery, but the 
 long and dreary way from Ingonish had dimmed 
 our hope a little. 
 
 Meadows appeared now at the right and 
 now at the left ; there came a gleam of blue 
 water and a pretty lake spread out below 
 us. Two or three houses stood near the 
 lake, but we could discover no track that led 
 to them. 
 
 In our turnings there came repeatedly the 
 most bewitching glimpses of mountains, loftier 
 than those of Ingonish, and about them were 
 driving wraiths of mist, that filled the hollows 
 and half obscured the projecting masses. 
 
 We crossed streams bordered by cultivated 
 fields, and the trees began to look home-like, 
 
 275 
 
 n 
 
 I 
 
 /)i 
 
 I : 
 
 , 
 

 
 I - 
 
 ilH i 
 
 I 
 
 MMMl 
 
 Down North and Up ylloft[r 
 
 ii\rtpIcH anil ImicIics ftcqucntly rtppcai-ing. We 
 skittcil a valley that once hail been a water- 
 course ; a torrent had Rwcpt down it and left 
 l>chind a plain story of its existence. Out of 
 the middle of the valley rose an island, tree- 
 covered and with precipitous cliffs of white 
 pypsum, worn into queer-shaped towers and 
 hutttx^sses. Over our road also loomed ghostly 
 and threatening forms of gypsum, under which 
 we were half afraid to pass, they looked so 
 ready to topple on oui* heads. And tlicn we 
 came fairly upon the charmifig valley of Aspy 
 Bay. It was like joy after sorrow to come 
 out of the sotnbre fir-Hllcd wilderness into this 
 blooming valley, through which flowed a broad 
 and beautiful river. There were elm -trees 
 singly, and in groups, with the sun behind 
 them shining out of a misty atmosphere that 
 made the trees look half unreal, as though 
 they were a product of the light. 
 
 Mountains rose from across the valley in 
 beautiful slopes, clad to the sununit with trees, 
 excepting where here and there a bare flank 
 swept up covered only with low, bright-leaved 
 shrubs. They were mountains with purple 
 shadows in their hollows, their slopes blue and 
 
 276 
 
^spy Bay 
 
 a> ...,.1 ■ ■■..■■■■ ■«■■ ..— .-I.— ., ■ — ■■■.— ^ .— -— - -..„-— .oiiwi mmi^miaiiimmtimmm'Mmmmmm^mmmma 
 
 green, with rjiinbuv/ colours in the niisf filled 
 openings between them, — mountains that rose 
 from the level plain, like vast and lovely 
 spirits. 
 
 Ab Smoky excels in magnitude the moun- 
 tains of iMiglishtown, so do the mour.tains f)f 
 Aspy Hay excel Smoky, yet they are l)cautifwl 
 rather than grand. More than one lovely 
 slope was painted with prismatic colours, the 
 varying shades of red rock being blended with 
 cx(piiaitc tones of green, yellow, and blue, 
 while seaward a warm rose tint, a sweet alpine 
 glow, lay along some of the slopes. 
 
 The valley was in a state of high cultivation, 
 and hidden behind clumps of trees were the 
 scattered farmhouses. Evidently peace and 
 plenty reigned here, a lovely oasis in a great 
 wilderness. The houses were roomy and well 
 built, and everything about them betokened 
 prosperity. Wc stopped on the bridge that 
 crossed the river, surprised and pleased, and 
 looked and looked again. 
 
 Mountains and valley were before us, while 
 off to the right shone the blue bay from which 
 the place gets its name. It was as usual toward 
 night as we thus drew near our stopping-place, 
 
 877 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 f 5i 
 
^'i\ 
 
 'MA 
 
 m 
 
 u 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 and an Indian summer haze intensified the 
 beauty of the waning day. 
 
 As we got closer, the mountains, without 
 losing their marvellous colouring, became more 
 distinctly individual, those behind being joined 
 to those in front only by their long overlap- 
 ping slopes and the colour-filled spaces between. 
 
 We were happy thus to find our blue bar- 
 rier resolved into endless forms of beauty, 
 mountain lying beyond mountain, while here 
 and there a glen opened to let out a foaming 
 brook and make windows through which we 
 caught glimpses of exquisitely lovely moun- 
 tain forms beyond. 
 
 We were on our way to Zwicker*s, and in 
 the estimation of the people of Cape North he 
 who does not know Zwicker's does not know 
 much. 
 
 " You will know it," the people told us ; " it 
 will be the big house." And so we did know 
 it when at last we got there. 
 
 It stands near the road in a friendly fashion, 
 and is half house, half store, the store occupy- 
 ing one wing of the building. 
 
 But inside the house is quite distinct from 
 the store, of whose proximity there is no sign. 
 
 278 
 
long 
 
 [fied the 
 
 without 
 me more 
 ig joined 
 overlap- 
 between. 
 )lue bar- 
 beauty, 
 hile here 
 foaming 
 vhich we 
 y moun- 
 
 s, and In 
 ^orth he 
 lot know 
 
 us ; " it 
 lid know 
 
 fashion, 
 occupy- 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 o 
 m 
 
 > 
 
 u 
 
 let from 
 lo sign. 
 
jr'f .-jr- 
 
 ifpfti 
 
 • f i 
 
 5 ! 
 
 i (■ 
 
 tip 
 
 11 
 
 
 III 
 
 - 
 
 hs " 
 
 ! 
 
 
 1 ■ 
 
 
A spy Bay 
 
 Zwicker's, or " Zwigger's," as the people call 
 it from Baddeck to Bay St. Lawrence, was a 
 surprise to us in more ways than one. It was 
 kept by two brothers, gentlemen by nature 
 and education. There were signs of foreign 
 travel and new books and recent issues of the 
 " American " magazines were lying about. The 
 house was not only roomy and comfortable, 
 very neat and well furnished, but afforded 
 luxuries not before enjoyed by us in Nova 
 Scotia. 
 
 There was an agreeable atmosphere about 
 the place, as of people who were accustomed to 
 the rational pleasures of life. 
 
 In the dining-room was a telegraphic instru- 
 ment whose clickety-click reminded us of the 
 world to which we belonged and of the mar. 
 vels achieved by man in that world. 
 
 What a moment that must have been in 
 Aspy Bay when the first transatlantic message 
 was received ! When the whole civilised world 
 held its breath to hear the momentous word 
 that, spoken in one continent, should leap to 
 another, vanquishing time and space, and in that 
 *fi^»^phant hour proclaim the conquest of 
 civilisation over barbarism, the death of war, 
 
 279 
 
 ^v\S 
 
 
11 ■. 
 
 lit >' 
 
 11 I , ;.,. 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 ^1 ■■! I ■ - ' -■■,. — I — I II M l. ■--,-, „ ■ — — . < 
 
 and the birth of universal peace upon earth. 
 It takes war a long time to die and universal 
 peace a long time to get out of its swaddling 
 clothes, but these things will surely come to 
 pass. The submarine cable and war cannot 
 live together on the same planet. 
 
 We were unexpected guests at Zwicker*s ; 
 and such an event as our arrival must have 
 occasioned the greatest astonishment, if not 
 absolute consternation, to the two men whom 
 fate, by taking away the mother, had left to 
 continue the home as best they could. But we 
 were received with such courtesy, and enter- 
 tained with such skilful hospitality, that we 
 did not know, until after we had left, that the 
 brothers constituted the whole household. 
 
 The history of Aspy Bay dates as far back 
 as that of Englishtown and Ingonish, — at least 
 in those days it had a name, the same it bears 
 to-day ; and the French voyager Pinchon speaks 
 also of this place, for he did not stop his trav- 
 els until he had gone the whole length of the 
 coast. 
 
 " Leaving Niganiche, we came to the creek 
 of Owarachouque," — which creek was that, we 
 should like to know, the creek at Neils Har- 
 
 280 
 
m 
 
 long 
 
 >n earth, 
 universal 
 waddling 
 come to 
 r cannot 
 
 wicker's ; 
 List have 
 t, if not 
 ;n whom 
 d left to 
 But we 
 id enter- 
 that we 
 that the 
 old. 
 
 far back 
 — at least 
 I it bears 
 )n speaks 
 his trav- 
 :h of the 
 
 16 creek 
 that, we 
 ils Har- 
 
 Aspy Bay 
 
 hour or our Black Brook perchance? — "and 
 from thence successively to the harbour of 
 Aspe, Cape North, the creek of St. Lawrence, 
 and the cape of the same name. Cape North, 
 or the mountain which forms it, is a peninsula 
 joining to th*^ island of Cape Breton by a very 
 low neck of land. But none of these places 
 are inhabited, or hardly at all frequented." 
 
 So much for " Aspe " prior to 1760; and in 
 truth it is not very densely inhabited yet, nor 
 is it frequented to the extent its lagoons run- 
 ning into the land from the sea and its soulful 
 mountains deserve. 
 
 In the early part of the century the evicted 
 Scotch peasants seeking homes found the 
 lovely and fertile valley, and the flourishing 
 appearance of the settlement is testimonial 
 enough to the character of the land, for where 
 the land is good the people are always well- 
 to-do and happy, if other people who do not 
 draw the furrow or wield the sickle will let 
 them alone. 
 
 There is a delightful lounging-place on the 
 water's edge a field or two from Zwicker's, a 
 warm grassy bluff where one can lie in the 
 sunshine with the same rat-tatting grasshoppers 
 
 aSi 
 
 H 
 
 I ,/ 
 
 1(1 
 
Pffi* 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 scurrying about in the same panic-stricken 
 haste that gave us such bootless chase on 
 Beaman's Mountain, and watch the changing 
 light on the mountains or on the blue bay. 
 
 Over the bay, among the little islands, boats 
 with brown sails were gliding about, for the 
 people here dye, or, as they say, tan, their sails 
 to make them last longer, and these brown- 
 sailed boats add much to the charm of the 
 picture. 
 
 Aspy Bay, like the Bay of St. Anne, is almost 
 shut up by a long cobblestone bar ; and a reef 
 of cobblestones at our left, as we sat facing the 
 sea, was thickly grown with the Mertensia Mari- 
 tima, now in full bloom. It was a comfort to 
 see this and know that we had not really been 
 guilty of pulling up the very last one in " Cape 
 North " when we so shamefully exterminated 
 the pretty thing on Englishtown's pebbly bar. 
 
 How long the Mertensia Maritima will be 
 left to adorn the cobblestone bar of Aspy Bay 
 is a question, for the Newfoundland steamer 
 calls here, and it is easy to step aboard at Halifax 
 and come straight to this beautiful and health- 
 ful spot, sure of a safe landing and a courteous 
 reception away down north. And some day 
 
 282 
 
 ^t:: U'j 
 
-stricken 
 hase on 
 :hanging 
 bay. 
 
 ds, boats 
 for the 
 heir sails 
 : brown- 
 i of the 
 
 is almost 
 
 id a reef 
 
 acing the 
 
 sia Mari- 
 
 mfort to 
 
 Uy been 
 
 n " Cape 
 
 Irminated 
 
 bly bar. 
 
 will be 
 
 spy Bay 
 
 steamer 
 
 Halifax 
 
 health- 
 
 urteous 
 
 me day 
 
 A Spy Bay 
 
 the work-weary and nature-hangry souls from 
 the cities are going to find out these things ; 
 and then, Mertensia Maritima, you may say 
 good-bye to your cobblestone bar. For these 
 new-comers will love you, and will pull you up 
 by the roots, and in a little while will throw 
 you away, and that will be the end of you. 
 
 We left Zwicker's and faced again " down 
 north," but this was the end, — one more day 
 of delightful lingering along the wayside, enjoy- 
 ing sea and mountain, coming upon new and 
 unexpected beauties of land and sea, and all 
 would be known. There would be no more 
 mystery, no more wondering " what next," for 
 we should come to Bay St. Lawrence and that 
 was the end. 
 
 For some distance beyond Zwicker's the 
 mountains are on one side of the road and the 
 sea on the other; and when there is no wind 
 the mountains can be seen inverted on the 
 water, where they are almost more lovely than 
 standing in the air. 
 
 We passed close to Sugar Loaf, the high- 
 est mountain of all, and were tempted. The 
 top looked so near and so inviting ! But we 
 knew that it was not near and that we could 
 
 283 
 
 "CM 
 
 -^ 
 
 i 
 
i I 
 
 ' i r 
 
 v.! 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 not get to it without first getting badly lost, 
 for these mountains of beauty are very stern 
 realities when one attempts to ascend them, and 
 guides are necessary. 
 
 It is a short stage to Bay St. Lawrence, and 
 we did not start very early nor yet hurry on 
 the road. 
 
 From Baddeck to Zwicker's is a distance of 
 one hundred and one miles by the road, we 
 were pleased to learn. The guide-books make 
 the distance much shorter, but the guide- 
 books are wrong. Any one who has travelled 
 the road will know that it is no less than one 
 hundred and one miles. 
 
 The distance from Zwicker's to Bay St. Law- 
 rence is only from five to eight miles, accord- 
 ing to the part of Bay St. Lawrence to which 
 one goes. We went eight miles, that is, as far 
 as it is possible for mortal man to go in a 
 waggon. 
 
 After Sugar Loaf is passed, the road turns 
 away from the sea and passes in back of the 
 mountains. As soon as one gets behind the 
 mountains, the scenery is dreary and consists of 
 stretches of fir and spruce trees broken only by 
 rushing streams and an occasional valley, where 
 
 284 
 
 tl: 
 
dly lost, 
 ry stern 
 lem, and 
 
 ;nce, and 
 lurry on 
 
 stance of 
 road, we 
 
 )ks make 
 
 e guide- 
 travelled 
 
 than one 
 
 / St. Law- 
 s, accord- 
 to which 
 is, as far 
 go in a 
 
 lad turns 
 
 Ick of the 
 
 ihind the 
 
 insists of 
 
 only by 
 
 ley, where 
 
 A Spy Bay 
 
 somebody has undertaken the cultivation of 
 barley and potatoes. 
 
 The way became so desolate and dreary for 
 a space that we began as usual to despair of 
 anything beyond. The only birds willing to 
 stay in this wilderness were the juncos ; and why 
 they should go for ever flitting down north 
 toward the icy sea, it is probable none but a 
 junco can explain. 
 
 Where there are cone-bearing trees, there will 
 be squirrel folk. Where bird-notes are lack- 
 ing, the song of the squirrel comes not amiss. 
 Indeed, it is pleasant even where there are birds, 
 and one hearing it for the first time may well 
 be excused for mistaking the varied and ex- 
 pressive solo for the song of some member of 
 the feathered tribe. It usually begins as if the 
 performer had been seized with a violent and 
 uncontrollable ague that caused his teeth to 
 chatter fast and furious. Chatter, chatter, 
 faster, faster, until the sounds run together 
 and make a pleasant musical note, the pitch 
 of which the performer varies apparently at 
 will and to give meaning to his song. He 
 sings with such abandon and such long-sus- 
 tained effort that he ought to drop panting at 
 
 285 
 
 A 
 
 * 
 
 4 1 
 
 
r 
 
 H 
 
 »• 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 your feet when he finishes with a dozen staccato 
 barks. But not he. W*^'le you are pitying 
 his condition, he is cooL .ropping scales on 
 your head from a fir cone which he is cutting 
 up with as much energy as if he had not sung 
 a note within the memory of man. He is good 
 company in the woods, as he never fails to as- 
 sault you with a torrent of squirrel back talk, 
 which is a great deal better than no talk, and 
 then he will very likely make amends by sing- 
 ing to you, though, truth to tell, you never feel 
 quite sure whether his ' ^markable and very 
 energetic song would be ranslating to polite 
 ears. 
 
 Our fears for what was to come as we moved 
 over the last stage of our journey turned out 
 as they always did. The dreary behind-the- 
 mountain road suddenly brought us into a new 
 world; and as had happened each time before, 
 as soon as the view burst upon us, we were 
 tempted to exclaim, " This, then, is better than 
 all the rest." 
 
 m 
 
 286 
 
4 long 
 
 — -— 
 
 en staccato 
 ire pitying 
 r scales on 
 ; is cutting 
 d not sung 
 He is good 
 fails to as- 
 back talk, 
 3 talk, and 
 ds by sing- 
 1 never feel 
 ; and very 
 ig to polite 
 
 5 we moved 
 turned out 
 behind-the- 
 j into a new 
 time before, 
 as, we were 
 , better than 
 
 XIX 
 CAPE NORTH 
 
 BAY ST. LAWRENCE is different 
 from all the rest. It is the Ultima 
 Ihule, the end of everything, the 
 place where the land comes to a sud- 
 den stop as though saying to the sea, " You have 
 conquered, I can push against you no farther ; 
 but see what a battlement I have reared to 
 
 vkals^' ''' ^"'^ ^'"^ ^°" ^"'^ ^'""^ "^y '°^^y 
 Whe. one gels to Bay St. Lawrence he can 
 no longer pursue his devious, half-fearful, but 
 wholly fascmating course « down north," for 
 as he stands on the high bluff and looks over 
 the pitiless northern sea, he knows that at last 
 he ts down north," that the half-dreaded 
 mountams and swamps have been passed, that 
 for days and days he has been a tramp, a gypsy, 
 eatmg by the roadside and drinking from way- 
 side streams, begging hospitality -- to be well 
 paid for- from the people along the road and 
 revellmg as he always dreamed of, but never 
 
 287 
 
 I 
 
\ 
 
 '. ! 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 expected to revel, in the free outdoor life of 
 an untamed and beau^^'^l land. 
 
 One can have all the delights and discom- 
 forts of pioneer life in Cape North with none 
 of its dangers. 
 
 Bay St. Lawrence is scooped out of the stony- 
 land between stone mountains that guard it to 
 east and west. But the settlement near the 
 shore is also called Bay St. Lawrence and is 
 surrounded on three sides by the mountains 
 and on the fourth by the sea. It is on a 
 plateau of exquisitely rolling swells, for the 
 most part grown over by soft tawny-white 
 grass and spacious enough to give the effect 
 of downs. It is a clean grassy amphitheatre 
 shut from the world by mountains and sea. 
 
 Close against the mountains that shut it 
 from the eastern sea is McDougal's Cove, 
 where are only three or four houses all sur- 
 rounded by broad meadows, through which we 
 could find no road but only waggon tracks 
 going in all directions as if intending to lead 
 the stranger astray and land him on the bank 
 of the bridgeless brook that gurgles through 
 these puzzling meadows. 
 
 In approaching McDov.gaFs Cove we 
 
 388 
 
Cape North 
 
 
 crossed a gully in the land, a deep cut, along 
 the bottom of which flowed a tiny brook, at 
 one time no doubt quite a masterful torrent ; 
 but its days of rampage were over, — it had 
 waxed old, thin, and feeble, and the deep hole 
 it had cut now formed the cosey hiding-place 
 for two or three blacked-roofed fish-houses and 
 a few fishi.ig-boats. So deep was this gully 
 that the buildings were entirely hidden until 
 we stood fairly over their heads and looked 
 down upon them. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Donald McDonald and their 
 sons and daughters live in their tiny home near 
 the bluflf overlooking the northern sea and 
 overshadowed by the great rock that rises a 
 thousand feet from the water, and is twin to the 
 bluff that is the veritable Cape North, and 
 which stands to the eastward of this. 
 
 It is certainly a mortifying statement to have 
 to make, but we are not sure that we really saw 
 Cape North, after, all. There was an impene- 
 trable haziness about the people's ideas as to 
 just exactly which bluff it was that distressed 
 us and confused our understanding. It is 
 probable, however, that, having gone to Bay 
 St. Lawrence to see Cape North, we did not see 
 19 2S9 
 
 •'> 
 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 it. We now think it lay concealed behind the 
 splendid headland that came up out of the sea 
 at McDougal's Cove, and which no doubt is 
 every whit as good as Cape North. Still — ! 
 It was a noble bluff that we saw, and it vividly 
 recalled Smolry's red front, though this mass 
 rises almost perpendicularly. It is followed 
 inland by another and similar uprising of red 
 rock, and that by another, and so on and on, 
 all of them sending great buttresses out toward 
 the grassy plains and finally framing in the 
 splendid amphitheatre of rolling meadow-land. 
 
 The mountains surrounding Bay St. Law- 
 rence are of bare rock. The fir-trees, the 
 spruces and hemlocks, discreetly remain at their 
 bases making a dark-green border to their 
 bright-coloured walls. There is great beauty 
 in the grim slopes of bare red rock ; the colour 
 of them is amazing ; lichens and bushes, or it 
 may be only the reflection of the afternoon 
 light at different angles from the scarred sur- 
 face, have made them beautiful beyond telling. 
 
 There is a sense of space, of peace, and 
 almost of awe in the presence of these strong 
 slopes with the wide grassy plain at their base, 
 and the feeling of vastness and isolation is in- 
 
 290 
 
u' 
 
 Cape North 
 
 creased by the height of the plain above the 
 shoreless sea that spreads before mountains and 
 meadows. 
 
 The great bluff at McDougal's Cove rises 
 from the sea in a solid wsli around which one 
 must pass in a boat to the outer bluff which is 
 indeed Cape North. There is a path over the 
 back of the mountain, however, a rough path 
 to climb, through coniferous trees where on 
 the sheltered side they flourish, and over bare 
 stones where the trees fail. 
 
 Katie McDonald, blooming daughter of our 
 
 new-made friends, was to go over the mountain 
 
 the very afternoon of our arrival. For on the 
 
 other side, accessible only by boat and this 
 
 rude mountain path, is a cove where has been 
 
 built a lobster factory. The factory is owned 
 
 by the son of a certain Rory McLeod, known 
 
 to fame as Big Rory because of his uncommon 
 
 height. Money Point is over there by the 
 
 lobster factory ; and it is Money Point because 
 
 once — a long time ago — a specie ship was 
 
 wrecked, and the coin fell into the water, where 
 
 for many a year it was fished out or thrown up 
 
 by storms and came into the hands of eager 
 
 seekers. 
 
 291 
 
 V 
 
 
 1.1 
 
 
In, 
 
 ma 
 
 V '■■ 
 
 \, it 
 
 ■h; 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 The money of Money Point is still fished 
 out of the sea, but not in the form of specie. 
 It comes out as lobster to be later transformed 
 into money. 
 
 Sometimes lobsters are scarce even here, and 
 there are none to can. This happened one 
 year when the mountains were red with wild 
 strawberries and the canny son of Big Rory did 
 then, so we were told, set his people to canning 
 strawberries instead of lobsters, and reaped the 
 reward he deserved, for these mountain straw- 
 berries, the people say, are very large and juicy 
 and wonderfully flavoured. 
 
 We were told, too, that on the back side of 
 one of the mountains red currants grow wild 
 and in great profusion ; but this marvel we did 
 not see with our own eyes, though we saw a 
 great many strawberry vines and some of them 
 foolishly in bloom. 
 
 Katie McDonald was going over to cook for 
 her brothers, who were canning lobsters, and 
 she did not seem to regard the excursion as 
 particularly pleasant; but when the time came 
 she started bravely enough, and we watched 
 her until she disappeared on the lonely moun- 
 tain, as though swallowed up by it. 
 
 SC2 
 
 MM 
 
Cape North 
 
 We should have liked to go with Katie, but 
 there were reasons against it, and we contented 
 ourselves with climbing a bare spur to the top 
 of another mountain, hoping for a view of the 
 whole earth. As is always the case, it was far- 
 ther to the top than it seemed, and it was a 
 very steep slope upon which huge cliffs and 
 crags jutted out, not pleasant to surmount, and 
 perhaps not always quite safe. And at the top 
 — nothing ! He who climbs these mountains for 
 a view of the world will find himself on the edge 
 of a mile-wide plateau which is rough and bubbly, 
 and across which one cannot possibly see farther 
 than a few rods. So, after all, it does not pay 
 very well, for the view down into McDougal's 
 Cove from the mountain-top is not as good as 
 the view from the cove up the mountain, and 
 the latter can be had without any exertion. 
 
 In the McDonald home were a number of 
 sealskins, the seals being caught near here. 
 They are not the fur-bearing seal, but are 
 covered with a coarse light-coloured hair, so 
 their only value is in their leather. We did 
 not see any seals, but Charlevoix did, and in his 
 letters he tells certain things about them which 
 we may believe or not as we please : — 
 
 293 
 
 ■k 
 
 7- 
 
 f\ 
 
 i I 
 
\ 
 
 
 ^1 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 - — — 1 
 
 " The Sea Wolf, or the Seal," says he, " takes its 
 Name from its Cry, which is a Sort of howling ; for 
 in its shape it resembles not the Wolf, nor any land 
 animal that we know. Lescarbot asserts that he has 
 heard some cry like Screech-Owls ; but these might 
 be only young ones, whose Cry was not quite formed. 
 They make no Hesitation here. Madam, to place it in 
 the Rank of Fishes ; though it is not mute, though it 
 is brought forth on the Land, and lives as much on it 
 as in the Water, and is covered with Hair : In a 
 word, though it wants nothing to make it to be con- 
 sidered as an amphibious creature. The war they 
 make with the Seals, though it is often on Land, and 
 with the Gun, is called a Fishery. 
 
 *' The Head of a Seal is something like a Bull-Dog's: 
 He has four Legs, very short, especially those behind : 
 In every other Respect it is a Fish. It drags itself 
 rather thi.n walks upon its Feet. Its Legs before 
 have Nails, those behind are like Fins ; His Skin is 
 hard, and covered with short Hair of divers Colours. 
 There are some Seals all white, and they are all so 
 when young ; but some, as they grow up, become 
 black, others tawny ; many are all these Colours 
 mixed together." 
 
 The skins of these creatures were tanned 
 with the bark of the spruce-tree and used for 
 boots and all other articles made of leather. 
 
 294 
 
Cape North 
 
 Their flesh was eaten, and their oil used in 
 cooking and for lighting. We are told that as 
 many as eight hundred young ones were some- 
 times killed in one day, so probably one 
 would wait as long to see a live seal in these 
 waters as to see a moose in the mountains back 
 of Ingonish. 
 
 At the McDonalds' we were enlightened 
 concerning certain pieces of furniture which 
 occasionally were found in the fisher-folk's 
 houses, — furniture out of all keeping with the 
 simple cottage fittings, furniture that belonged 
 rather to the cities or the country-houses of 
 the well-to-do. But here we learned that 
 these articles were the flotsam and jetsam from 
 the many vessels wrecked on that cruel coast, 
 and it was hinted that time was when certain 
 of the settlers busied themselves more in be- 
 coming possessed of the spoil than in assist- 
 ing the drowning. 
 
 To leave Bay St. Lawrence was to turn 
 southward and retrace our steps over moun- 
 tains and swamps. Reluctantly we turned 
 from the cold northern sea and the fine amphi- 
 theatre with its encircling mountains of bare 
 rock that were so wonderfully beautiful in the 
 
 295 
 
 
 
 i 
 
t 
 
 P 'iv 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 evening glow. Reluctantly we bade adieu to 
 the McDonalds', and their cordial hospitality 
 that rang more like English than Scotch metal. 
 Yet the return proved about as enjoyable as 
 the first passing. True, the uncertainty as to 
 what next was gone ; we knew what next, 
 but that had its advantages. It was pleasant 
 to meet again the people and to be received 
 now like old friends. It was pleasant t-o carry 
 the bits of neighbourhood gossip from station 
 to station — like troubadours of old. And 
 the scenery we found was quite new. For 
 we were turned around now and looking the 
 other way. It is impossible, moreover, to see 
 everything in once passing, so that the return 
 trip was fully as enjoyable as the first coming. 
 
 We did not linger going back. We did 
 not dare, for there was a threat of rain which 
 was not to be ignored, unless we desired to 
 add to our other experiences that of a typical 
 Cape Breton autumn storm. And that of all 
 things we did not desire, for there were few 
 places we should have cared to remain in, 
 storm-bound, even for a day. So we pressed 
 ahead, past Zwicker's and past Aspy Bay, 
 lovely in the hazy atmosphere. Nor did we 
 
 296 
 
' ^, - V - -\ . " 
 
 A FisHiNc; Schooner 
 
 SI 
 
i 
 
 ., 
 
Cape North 
 
 stop until we had reached the hospitable roof 
 of the Half Way House, where we found all 
 as we had left it, excepting that the maternal 
 cat, having been deprived of her kitten, which 
 a passing Highlander had begged to take with 
 him, persisted in washing the face of the white 
 dog with a black head. As to the dog him- 
 self, perhaps the least said the better. He 
 was bearing it as well as he could, but the 
 looks he cast upon the mistaken cat we 
 feared did not augur well for her future 
 happiness. 
 
 After a good night's rest at the Half Way 
 House, we were oiF in the cold morning, leav- 
 ing Mrs. McPherson with reluctance, and she 
 too, seemed loath to have us go. It seemed 
 as if we had known the people of "Cape 
 North " a very long time and were parting 
 from old friends for ever. Before the bushes 
 swallowed us up, we turned for a last look 
 and on the doorstep sat the abused dog' 
 wondering, no doubt, how long he could 
 stand It, while the cat, regardless of conse- 
 quences, continued to wash his already too 
 clean countenance. 
 
 Sometimes we stopped at our old camp, 
 
 297 
 
J 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 fires, where they were in particularly favour- 
 able spots, and sometimes we found new 
 places for the noonday rest. 
 
 The people in the barley fields nodded to 
 us and sometimes even smiled. They had 
 had time to talk us over and compare notes, 
 and though we might be a little "lacking" to 
 go on such a purposeless journey, still they 
 felt in their hearts that we were harmless. 
 
 We passed the Ingonishes without stopping 
 until we had crossed the ferry at the foot of 
 Smoky. We did it to save time, for often the 
 men are away in the morning on the more im- 
 portant business of fishing, and the traveller is 
 obliged to await their return. It was just at 
 nightfall when we crossed the ferry trusting to 
 our oft-tried and never-failing |»owers of per- 
 suasion to get taken in at some wayside cottage 
 on the other side. This time we came near 
 making a fatal mistake, for the cottages at the 
 foot of Smoky would none of us. They 
 were few' and far between, n»^d it is true 
 were tiny, and no do^ c true, as they 
 
 said, that there )m r us. At last 
 
 we cast anchor in ine in , nich we knew was a 
 spare room and where v is a small barn. They 
 
 298 
 
4 long 
 
 ly favour- 
 )und new 
 
 nodded to 
 rhey had 
 •are notes, 
 eking " to 
 still they 
 less. 
 
 : stopping 
 e foot of 
 often the 
 more im- 
 raveller is 
 as just at 
 •usting to 
 "s of per- 
 le cottage 
 ame near 
 jes at the 
 They 
 
 is true 
 , as they 
 
 At last 
 ew was a 
 1. They 
 
 Cape North 
 
 said they could n't ; we said they must. They 
 said it was impossible, and we pictured in 
 graphic terms the alternative, our being obliged 
 to spend the cold night on the mountain- 
 side, where they would go out next day and 
 find our frozen forms, and be obliged to bury 
 us then and there, and be pointed to by all 
 posterity as the cruel folk who had turned 
 travellers from their door, to perish on the 
 mountain. They saw the reasonableness of 
 the argument, and we stayed,. though it is not 
 quite fair to say they allowed it, suffered it 
 would be better ; at least until all hands were 
 well warmed up over the kitchen stove, and 
 a supper of oatmeal porridge had lent a more 
 genial glow to all our heart-strings. Then we 
 fell into friendly conversation, and the woman 
 showed us her rugs, and the man told us 
 of the awful night when he rescued Parson 
 Gibbons from sure death on the side of 
 Smoky. 
 
 Many of these people are endowed with 
 "second sight," and all believe in it. The 
 story the man told was this : One night, 
 bitter cold and snowing, he had a sudden 
 kiiowledge that Parson Gibbons was on the 
 
 299 
 
r, 
 \ 
 
 ., 
 
 t 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 ^tmm%. M *»m jii i w. ■ i«ii II ■■!■— ■■■i^.^ — i«»«».^«« T- ^.Mwi.. M i l— ■!■ I iBii . — — »Mi^«i. n w* - .tmtmmmmmm 
 
 ntouiUiiiii !nul in trouble, lie prrparcil to go 
 out aiul his wife sjiitl it was tolly, for the parson 
 was not cx|H'cteil to puss at that time of the 
 month. But juich terror now seized the man 
 that he was compelled to go; and stumbling 
 through the snow he at last found the object of 
 his search, who, overcome by the colil, had sunk 
 down and ceaseil to exert himself. If he had 
 not been fouml in this strange way, he would 
 surely have perished that night. 
 
 At Wreck Cove we opened three large gates 
 and crossed three broad meadows in order to 
 make our call upon Hig Kory's folks Big 
 Rory himself was not at home ; but we visited 
 with Mrs. Kory, who, we were pleased to find, 
 was sister to Mrs. McLeod of iMiglishtown. 
 
 From Big Rory's to Indian Brook, the way 
 was lovely, for the mountains of beauty were 
 about us, and wc caught occasional glimpses of 
 those cf iMiglishtown across the sea. 
 
 The last night we spent at Angus Mc- 
 Donald's, who had a large house in the " flat 
 lands " not far from Indian Brook. We had 
 lingered along the way, visiting with old friends 
 and being hailed by new ones, for our fame 
 
 had gone abroad, and every one who was 
 
 300 
 
 
Cape North 
 
 related to any one wc had met — and who 
 is not related in that part of the world? — 
 claimed acquaintance, and it wa» dark 'ocforc 
 wc reached our destination, and we were 
 troubled. Just as the case began to look 
 serious, wc saw a dirn form approaching. We 
 asked it the way to Angus McDonald's, and 
 the man replied that he was Angus McDonald 
 himself, and was on the way home, and that 
 wc had missed the turn and must go hack 
 a little way. Providential meeting! Gladly 
 we retraced our steps, and were soon in the 
 warmth of the McDonald hearthstone. 
 
 It rained all night, and in the morning the 
 sky was wet and sullen, hut we decided to 
 press on. Better a wetting than isolation in 
 any of these cottages ; so on we went, and 
 soon the rain came down as if in a fury at 
 having let us escape so long. We crossed the 
 iron bridge over the Barasois River and did 
 not turn to the left toward Torquil McLane's 
 ferry, for the waves ran high in Englishtown 
 Harbour and there would be no crossing there 
 that day. So we turned to the right and went 
 " North River way," which is longer but not 
 complicated by ferries. 
 
 301 
 
Down North and Up Along 
 
 We thought we had seen brooks before, but 
 that day's drive convinced us that we had until 
 then known nothing about the subject. Then, 
 too, was explained the use of the many appar- 
 ently useless bridges ; under every one poured a 
 torrent, — indeed, the road itself was often a 
 mountain torrent up which or down which Dan 
 waded, keeping to the road by some instinct 
 which we had not. There came a place where 
 we were surrounded by water, and where there 
 was a pond at one side, we knew not how deep. 
 The road took a turn along the edge of the 
 pond ; but what turn, which way should we go 
 to keep on terra firma beneath the rushing 
 flood ? We were in despair, and finally told 
 Dan to go his own way, which he did, and took 
 us safely through. 
 
 Down the mountain sides rushed foaming 
 streams that plunged straight across the road ; 
 every mountain was streaked with white lines 
 of foam and dashing water. The world had 
 gone brook-mad. Sometimes the rain fell so 
 heavily as to obscure everything but the 
 watery way in front; th^n it ceased, and we 
 looked out upon the earth soaked and fresh, 
 
 and covered with brooks. 
 
 302 
 
Cape North 
 
 We were soon soaked to the skin, but in spite 
 of that we were thrilled and warmed by the 
 beauty of the rain-clad mountains. There, 
 wonderflii to relate ! did the crisp moss on the 
 trees in a moment fluff out into soft masses 
 of delicious green ; did the stringy beards on 
 the limbs of the spruces expand and become 
 light and graceful, and able to sway in beautiful 
 curves; did the grim woods turn into fairy 
 palaces with deep soft carpets of lovely moss 
 and exquisite tapestry on every tree and rock. 
 The road was new and lovely and in the 
 sunshine must be a wonder-land of splendid 
 mountain scenery, judging from the occasional 
 glimpses we caught through the mists. 
 
 Our dinner that day consisted of crackers 
 and cheese and apples, which we sat in the 
 waggon and ate, while Dan munched his oats 
 as best he could standing in his tracks in the 
 road. 
 
 It was a wild storm, and the road seemed 
 endless. We struggled along from early 
 mornmg until almost nightfall, finally entering 
 Baddeck chilled to the marrow and thoroughly 
 miserable, while Dan seemed hardly able to take 
 another step. 
 
 303 
 
'r ^€- 
 
 Down North and Up Along 
 
 A few hours later, sitting coseyly before a 
 glowing fire, dry and warm, with that delicious 
 drowsiness that comes under such circum- 
 stances, the pictures of our trip " down north " 
 kept flitting before our minds ; and the dearest 
 pictUiC of all was of the mossy rain-drenched 
 forest road with the newborn brooks tumbling 
 across our path. The wetting did us no 
 harm, and the day in the rain was a fitting 
 ending to our strange and delightful journey 
 "down north." 
 
 304 
 
 ■HHtfiaii 
 
 OliiaHla 
 
long 
 
 before a 
 delicious 
 circum- 
 1 north " 
 e dearest 
 drenched 
 rumbling 
 I us no 
 a fitting 
 journey