--. 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANuELES 
 LIBRARY
 
 NOVA SCOTIA
 
 41 Towards Scotia's earliest bonniest chief, 
 Across the wild Atlantic wave 
 I sailed my trig auld Norland keel"
 
 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 THE PROVINCE THAT HAS 
 BEEN PASSED BY 
 
 BY 
 
 BECKLES WILLSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'THE GREAT FUR COMPANY," "THE ROMANCE OF CANADA," ETC. 
 
 "I don't know what more you'd ask : almost an island, indented 
 everywhere with harbours, surrounded with fisheries the key of 
 the St. Lawrence, the Bay of Fundy, and the West Indies ; prime 
 land above, one vast mineral bed beneath, and a climate over all 
 temperate, pleasant and healthy. If that ain't enough for one place, 
 it's a pity that's all." SAM SLICK, of Slickville. 
 
 REVISED EDITION WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD. 
 
 1912 
 
 89351
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON <&* Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
 
 F 
 
 IO 
 
 NM68 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 J 
 
 BY HON. GEORGE H. MURRAY 
 
 PRIME MINISTER OF NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 ALL lovers of Nova Scotia will welcome this volume. I 
 ^ have read it with pleasure as recording the impressions a 
 sojourn in this Province has made on a man of culture and 
 ^ acute observation. 
 
 It will prove valuable to those who wish to learn some- 
 thing of a portion of Canada that is not yet well known 
 abroad. Those who purpose to emigrate to Canada will 
 i read this book with interest and to their advantage, and it 
 will whet their appetites for more information regarding 
 this Province. 
 
 Nova Scotia is a country that draws wealth from the 
 
 ocean, the forest, the farm, the mine and the mill. Our 
 
 ' industries are not exotic, but spring directly out of natural 
 
 conditions. Although Nova Scotia has only about one- 
 
 N. fifteenth of the population of Canada, the Province is the 
 
 predominating factor in the Dominion in fish, coal, and 
 
 steel. The material development of these industries and 
 
 of agriculture gives scope to the energies of our people, 
 
 and the establishment of a complete system of technical
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 education develops the practical powers of the young men, 
 enabling them to conduct and enlarge upon industrial 
 undertakings both at home and abroad. 
 
 It has been said that there are two fundamental con- 
 ditions of industrial well-being. The first is a fit people, 
 and the second a fit country. Both are found in Nova 
 Scotia. The people of Nova Scotia spring from the best 
 blood of the British Isles. In a little over a century they 
 have converted a land of forest into a country of sunny 
 orchards, rich grain fields, glowing furnaces and comfort- 
 able homes. I would extend an invitation to our British 
 kinsmen to come over and share in our prosperity. 
 
 Nova Scotia possesses a record of substantial achieve- 
 ment and remarkable progress, which inspires its people to 
 greater and more earnest efforts for the future. At the 
 same time we believe that the success of this Province in 
 the years to come will be assured only by the enterprise, 
 intelligence, and industry of its people. We realise that 
 the supremacy of Nova Scotia will rest as much upon in- 
 tellectual strength and educational training as upon the 
 character and volume of industrial output. 
 
 HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, 
 June 21, 1912.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 I SUPPOSE Canadians of the First Immigration should be 
 very well pleased to see their farm lands overrun by the 
 mongrel hordes of Europe who, we are told, are presently 
 to assimilate the manners, institutions, and amenities which 
 our British forefathers so slowly and painfully through the 
 centuries established for us. 
 
 It is a magnificent spectacle the West is offering to 
 the world this great trek of a hundred thousand families 
 a year these cities arising in a single night, this flux and 
 tumult, this noisy abandonment of effete conventions and 
 ideals. Perhaps it is all going to end, as the optimists tell 
 us it will end, to the glory of the race our race. But 
 some of them do not deny a certain element of risk in 
 the process. It is a big price we may have to pay. It is 
 the price the Egyptians paid to the Semites; the Greeks 
 paid to the Macedonians ; the Romans paid to the Goths ; 
 the Persians paid to the Saracens ; the Gauls paid to the 
 Franks ; and the Americans have paid to the Irish, Italians, 
 and Poles. And always the price is Character. 
 
 " When," once wrote a distinguished American to me, 
 " I think of the early nineteenth-century promise of New
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 England, of its race of scholars and gentlemen, of its 
 thousands of quiet God-fearing homes, and the contented 
 industry of the countryside, I could wish that a great gulf 
 had cut us off on the West and an impassable barrier had 
 arisen on our Eastern sea-board." But We are going to 
 win through We are going to assimilate these alien peoples. 
 Our civilisation will suffer as our neighbours have suffered ; 
 our serenity will cloud for a time, and when the contents 
 of the melting-pot have cooled the alloy may be a per- 
 manent part of our whole national being. But We shall 
 not falter. 
 
 Nor will this restless ethnological flux continue. The 
 current and perhaps necessary methods of to-day will nay, 
 must yield to other and higher notions of progress. We 
 shall not always be touting for Slav and Hun and Celtic 
 immigrants, and soon, tout as we may, they will not come. 
 Europe will settle herself. Europe, in turn, will have her 
 own " boom." And, in the meanwhile, all Canada will 
 not suffer alike, and the part which will longest retain its 
 fundamental likeness to Britain, its moral unity with the 
 people of the Mother island, is that province which is the 
 subject of this book. 
 
 Nova Scotia has not been exempt from sacrifices. Great 
 as the boon of Confederation doubtless was, and is, to the 
 Provinces of the Dominion, it has been a small boon to 
 Nova Scotia. She has had to play the part of Cinderella 
 while her sisters went to the ball. But her comparative 
 seclusion, added to her intelligence, her frugality, her gentle
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 character, and far greater natural beauty, may commend 
 her to the thousands of English and Scottish men and 
 women who wish to migrate from the British island to 
 the equally British peninsula on the other side of the 
 ocean the nearest to them of the provinces of Canada. 
 
 QUEBEC HOUSE, WESTERHAM
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. FACE 
 
 I. CANADA'S "FRONT DOOR" i 
 
 II. NEW SCOTLAND'S BEGINNINGS n 
 
 III. NEW SCOTLAND'S CHARACTERISTICS , . . .22 
 
 IV. HALIFAX AND THE HALIGONIANS 35 
 
 V. WINDSOR AND "SAM SLICK" 55 
 
 VI. GRAND PR AND EVANGELINE 66 
 
 VII. ANNAPOLIS ROYAL AND DIGBY . . . . .81 
 
 VIII. YARMOUTH AND SHIPBUILDING 97 
 
 IX. SHELBURNE AND THE LOYALISTS 116 
 
 X. BRIDGEWATER AND LUNENBURG 133 
 
 XI. ON THE GOVERNMENT'S FARM 144 
 
 XII. PICTOU AND NEW GLASGOW 156 
 
 XIII. CAPE BRETON 176 
 
 XIV. THE SYDNEYS 189 
 
 XV. LOUISBOURG .205 
 
 XVI. A NEW INVERNESS . . . . . . .218 
 
 XVII. AMHERST 228 
 
 APPENDIX . . . 247
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " A full-fed river winding slow " Frontispiece 
 
 Martello Tower at Halifax ..... Facing page 20 
 
 Halifax, Boating on the North- West Arm . . 27 
 
 Halifax and Harbour from the Citadel 36 
 
 Entrance to the Citadel, Halifax . . . . ,, 43 
 
 In the Public Gardens, Halifax . . . . 48 
 
 In the Environs of Windsor 55 
 
 Bedford Basin 55 
 
 Victoria Park, Windsor, N.S 60 
 
 Near Lochaber Lake 60 
 
 St. Eulalie, The Residence at Grand Pre of Hon. 
 
 Sir Robert Weatherbe ..... 73 
 
 The Scene of the Grand Pre Raid of 1754 78 
 
 A Joy-Ride in " The Valley " 81 
 
 Annapolis The Oldest Graveyard on the Continent ,, 87 
 Annapolis Royal The Home of Thomas Chandler 
 
 Haliburton ....... 87 
 
 Off the Pier at Digby ...... 93 
 
 Low Tide at Yarmouth ...... 93 
 
 The Home of Evangeline . ... . 95 
 
 At Evangeline's Well ......,,,, 95 
 
 The Old Governor's House, Shelburne . . . ,,122 
 
 A New Scotland Idyll In the Annapolis Valley . 139 
 
 Main Hall Nova Scotia Agricultural College . 145
 
 xii ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 At Kingsport Facing page 148 
 
 " Calling " a Moose 148 
 
 Truro The " Joe Howe Falls " .... 154 
 
 The End of Bruin , 158 
 
 Pictou Norway House . , 161 
 View on the Outskirts of Antigonish . . . ,,171 
 Strait of Canso, Port Mulgrave . . . . ,,176 
 A Splendid Moose near Lake Rossignol . . . 178 
 King Street, Shelburne (the Town of the Loyalists) . 183 
 
 The Road to Louisbourg ,, ,,210 
 
 Louisbourg The Last of the Dauphin Gate . . ,, aio 
 Louisbourg The Obelisk Commemorating the First 
 
 Siege ,,217 
 
 La Bras d'Or Lake (Cape Breton) , ,,220 
 
 Landscape near Stellarton . . . . . ,,227 
 
 The Site of Fort Lawrence , 239 
 
 On its Last Legs Cumberland House, near 
 
 Amherst, N.S. , 240 
 
 A Fine Catch near the Mira River .... 242
 
 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CANADA'S "FRONT DOOR" 
 
 " And if he took ship, lo ! it was the wrong ship ; and when 
 he had got upon the land the road led him backward, or to the 
 right or to the left, so that with doubling and turning he was 
 full twenty years upon his journey. And all this while, if 
 he could but have seen it, the land of Salabat lay straight 
 before him, likewise the castle of the Princess Zobeide, which 
 he could not behold because of the cloud the genie had caused to 
 float before it" 
 
 Some of us laughed when we recalled that Arabian tale 
 on our pilgrimage to New Scotland, for there was a man 
 on board who dwelt at Sydney ; and he told us how, 
 on his visit to London, he had engaged a taxicab at the 
 Mansion House, and told the driver to take him to Picca- 
 dilly Circus. After an hour or so he waxed impatient, 
 and putting his head out of the window asked the driver 
 where they were. 
 
 " Hammersmith," was the reply. 
 
 " But that's the other end of London, isn't it ? I told 
 you Piccadilly Circus." 
 
 Whereat the man was aggrieved. 
 
 A
 
 2 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 " Ain't I driving you to Piccadilly Circus ? " he asked. 
 " You didn't say you wanted a short cut ? * 
 
 " There's Sydney yonder," concluded the Nova Scotian, 
 with the glass to his eye, " and we might be at Halifax 
 this evening. There is the gleaming Bras d'Or, and the 
 trout streams of the Mira River, and my wife and children 
 are on the pier at Sydney ; and I'm sailing on and on a 
 thousand miles to Montreal, and then a thousand miles back 
 by rail, because the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, 
 and the Government of Canada, and * all the powers of the 
 air, and the water, and the road ' don't know that I want 
 a short cut" 
 
 Of the nine Canadian Provinces stretching from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific seaboard, the one of which English- 
 men might be expected, from its origin, its proximity, its 
 history, and its resources, to know most about they know 
 least. This is a puzzle I have often had to explain. Go 
 down into Kent or into Wiltshire, and you will find villagers 
 talking glibly of Saskatchewan and Alberta. The ale-house 
 wiseacre can give you off-hand all the salient peculiarities 
 of the Far West. I have heard a farm labourer near 
 Westerham expatiating upon the grazing lands of the Bow 
 River, and the duties of the mounted police, five thousand 
 miles away, never forgetting to refer to the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway tout court as the C.P.R. To hear him one 
 would suppose he had already made his venture into those 
 far occidental regions of the Empire ; but no ! it was only 
 in prospect, when he had " saved up a bit more." 
 
 " Why in the name of common-sense do you go so far ? " 
 I asked. " What's the matter with Nova Scotia ? "
 
 CANADA'S "FRONT DOOR" 3 
 
 The worthy fellow stared and scratched his chin. 
 
 " Nova Scotia," he replied, not without difficulty, 
 " an' where might that be, sir ? " 
 
 Here his intelligent little niece a half-baked product 
 of the Board School, came to the rescue. 
 
 " Don't you see, uncle Bob, the gentleman's only 'aving 
 a little joke with you ? Nova Scotia is an unin'abited 
 island in the Arctic Ocean ! " 
 
 Now, Saskatchewan is between 4000 and 5000 miles 
 from England ; Nova Scotia is less than half the distance, 
 long-peopled, storied, picturesque to the eye. Both are 
 Canada both are crying out for immigrants. Yet the one 
 stands almost solely for Canada in the mind of the pros- 
 pective emigrant, and the other he confuses with Nova 
 Zembla ! Could you demand a more striking tribute to 
 the powers of advertisement ? For alone of the Canadian 
 Provinces those on the Atlantic seaboard had not shared 
 in the astounding uplift, " the spectacular development," 
 which has characterised the Dominion since 1896. 
 Hundreds of thousands of immigrants poured into the 
 country, past the forests, orchards, and valleys of what 
 has been aptly called " Canada's front door." It was 
 decreed that they should be carried on to where there were 
 lands to sell and wheat to be freighted ; and so they 
 travelled westward " gone farther and fared worse " in 
 many cases, although serving an undeniably good end in 
 buttressing and giving body to the lately invertebrate trunk 
 of the Dominion, of which Nova Scotia is undeniably the 
 " head." 
 
 But this condition could not endure : the reaction has
 
 4 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 come at last ; l and this beautiful Province is now command- 
 ing that attention which is her due. 
 
 To me as a Canadian, the pageant of New Scotland 
 and Acadia has been familiar from my earliest years, and 
 as the steamer ploughed its way through the waters of 
 the Gulf, I had abundant leisure to let my fancy dwell upon 
 those scenes of the past. 
 
 Full of adventurous story are the annals of this Province 
 erstwhile Acadia and the Markland of Leif the Lucky. 
 It was our kinsfolk, the Norsemen from Iceland, who landed 
 on the peninsula nine centuries ago. 
 
 One stops to marvel sometimes how the course of the 
 history of the world would have run if Leif and his men 
 had remained and settled Markland, and Vinland, and 
 the New World. Instead of the Crusades, Europe would 
 have poured her militant hordes into this hemisphere five 
 centuries before Columbus ; and instead of conquering 
 England such spirits as William of Normandy would have 
 found such a field for their energies as Pizarro and Cortez 
 later found. Or it may be that the Scandinavians, with 
 their western possessions, would have forged ahead of 
 Latin Europe, and New Christianas, New Stockholms, and 
 New Copenhagens would have replaced the Bostons, New 
 Yorks, and Chicagos of far later times. 
 
 But the Norsemen sailed back, leaving Markland un- 
 settled ; and in a few generations the story of their adven- 
 turous voyage was forgotten, or enshrined only in the sagas 
 of their poets, where it became dim and legendary. The 
 centuries passed. Markland was given over to the tribes 
 
 1 For advanced legislation dealing with the problem of land settlement 
 in Nova Scotia recently enacted, see Appendix A.
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENT 5 
 
 of wild Micmacs, who inhabited its coasts and roamed its 
 interior in search of the moose and caribou, paddled their 
 canoes, and sang their songs of love, and war, and the chase ; 
 who offered sacrifices to their gods in the light of a 
 thousand lodge fires. Then Columbus came. Five years 
 after the daring Genoan had sighted the West Indian 
 islands from English shores, John Cabot set forth, crossed 
 the Atlantic, landed on the Markland coast, and, by virtue 
 of his charter from King Henry VII., founded the claim of 
 England to Markland and to the whole Continent Columbus 
 never saw. But England's day for expansion was not yet. 
 Cortereal, a slave-hunter, appeared on the Labrador coast 
 in 1500, and there kidnapped a cargo of natives. Eighteen 
 years later, a Frenchman, Baron de Lery, landed some of his 
 followers and a few head of cattle on Sable Island, off the 
 Markland coast. But although this attempt failed, some 
 of the cattle thrived, and their descendants were found 
 running wild on this bleak sandy island eighty years after- 
 wards. After de Le"ry none came to colonise these northern 
 lands until Jacques Cartier, the hardy St. Malo mariner, 
 sailed with his men into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and up 
 the river to Stadacona. On the heels of Cartier, from whom 
 and other sailors they had tidings of the wealth of the 
 New World fisheries, came a horde of English, Norman, 
 Basque, and Breton fishermen, who plied their calling off 
 the Markland coasts, and returned laden with cod in the 
 autumn. Many of these landed and dried their fish on the 
 shore, and during most of the sixteenth century that was 
 all Europe knew of or dealt with Markland. True, under 
 a charter granted by Elizabeth, Sir Humphrey Gilbert
 
 6 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 landed in Newfoundland and took possession of all land six 
 hundred miles in every direction from St. Johns, comprising 
 therefore what is to-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince 
 Edward Island, and part of Labrador. But his flagship, the 
 Squirrel, sank with all on board in Nova Scotian waters, 
 and nothing more came of Gilbert's colonising scheme. 
 
 Two years ere the century closed, the French again 
 awoke to the possibilities of North American settlement ; 
 and the Marquis de la Roche sailed forth for Markland 
 with a cargo of convicts for colonists, for volunteers were 
 chary of accompanying him. La Roche steered westward 
 until he came to that long crescent of sand which the 
 opposite currents off the Markland coast had formed, whose 
 treacherous shallows were just hidden by the waves as if 
 designed to lure ships to their destruction. It was the 
 same Sable Island upon which de Le"ry had landed eighty 
 years before. Fearing the aborigines on the mainland, 
 La Roche disembarked his convicts while he went to recon- 
 noitre. Awaiting the Marquis's return, the convicts roamed 
 the island, and came upon herds of wild cattle, whose 
 ancestors had come out from France with de Le"ry : they 
 tramped by the solitary lagoon of fresh water, through the 
 dark grasses, startling the flocks of wild duck, but never a 
 shelter they saw. And they drew themselves together at 
 dusk, and dug holes in the mud and sand, and waited for 
 the ships to come and take them away, even back to the 
 gaols and galleys of France. There are few more tragic 
 incidents in New Scotland story than this, one of the 
 earliest. For the Marquis de la Roche had been driven 
 back across the Atlantic by an autumn hurricane, and the
 
 PORT ROYAL 7 
 
 forty unhappy wretches in their despair, after ravening 
 like wolves, and fighting and slaying each other, when other 
 sustenance was gone, snared the wild cattle and ate the 
 flesh raw, clothed their bodies in the hides, and out of the 
 wreckage on the shore fashioned themselves a shelter from 
 the terrible winter. Meanwhile, La Roche had been flung 
 by a powerful rival into prison, and it was some time before 
 he could get the ear of the Court to explain the plight of the 
 men on Sable Island. At last a ship went out to take them 
 home, and the twelve wild-eyed survivors, clad in shaggy 
 hides, and with matted hair and beards, were got on board 
 and carried back to France, where the King saw and set 
 them free. A few years later another French noble, Pierre 
 du Gast, the Sieur de Monts, the founder of Acadia, 
 procured from the monarch a monopoly of North American 
 trade, set forth in two ships filled with cavaliers and convicts, 
 to people the territory named in his grant. This was 
 Acadia, of no very definite limits, but comprising the 
 entire north-eastern portion of the Continent. With 
 de Monts sailed Champlain and a Picardy nobleman, the 
 Baron de Poutrincourt ; and, after sighting Cape la Hve 
 (near Lunenburg), and entering Port Rossignol, the party 
 skirted the Acadian coasts (losing a sheep overboard in 
 another harbour, which de Monts promptly named Port 
 Mouton), explored the Bay of Fundy, and finally landed 
 and spent the winter on a small island at the mouth of the 
 St. Croix River. When spring came, de Monts abandoned 
 this settlement for a far better site, on the shores of a 
 beautiful harbour on the eastern side of the Bay of Fundy, 
 which they christened Port Royal.
 
 8 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 " The most commodious, pleasant place that we had yet 
 seen in this country," wrote Champlain. While the colony 
 was industriously preparing a settlement further down the 
 coast for the winter, Champlain went off exploring the 
 coast in his ship, sailing up and down what was destined to 
 become ere long the territory of New England. 
 
 Poutrincourt's first choice, Port Royal, was found far 
 superior to the tentative one at St. Croix River, and there 
 in late spring they began to construct a town near what is 
 now called Annapolis. De Monts and Poutrincourt, re- 
 turning in the autumn to France, managed to induce a 
 large number of mechanics and workers to emigrate to 
 Acadia, and Poutrincourt's ship, the Jonas, sailed from 
 Rochelle in May 1606. Amongst the new emigrants was 
 the active Lescarbot, lawyer and poet, and man of affairs. 
 
 A peal of cannon from the little fort at Port Royal 
 testified to the joy of its inmates at the advent of the Jonas. 
 Poutrincourt broached a hogshead of wine, and Port Royal 
 became a scene of mirth and festivity. When, in the 
 absence of Champlain and Poutrincourt on further ex- 
 ploration, Lescarbot was left in charge of the colony, he 
 set to work briskly, ordering crops of wheat, rye, and 
 barley to be sown in the rich meadows, and gardens to be 
 planted. Some he cheered, others he shamed into industry. 
 Not a day passed but some new and useful work was begun : 
 water-mills, brick kilns, and furnaces for making tar and 
 turpentine. When the explorers returned to Port Royal, 
 rather dispirited, Lescarbot arranged a masquerade to 
 welcome them back, and all the ensuing winter, which was 
 extremely mild, was given up to content and good cheer.
 
 "ORDER OF A GOOD TIME" 9 
 
 Then it was that Champlain started his famous " Order of 
 a Good Time," of which many stories have been transmitted 
 to us. The members of this order were the fifteen leading 
 men of Port Royal. They met in Poutrincourt's great hall, 
 where the great log fire roared merrily. For a single day 
 each of the members was saluted by the rest as Grand 
 Master, and wore round his neck the splendid collar of 
 office, while he busied himself with the duty of providing 
 dinner and entertainment. One and all declared the fish 
 and game were better than in Paris, and plenty of wine 
 there was to toast the King and one another in turn. " At 
 the right hand of the Grand Master sat the guest of honour, 
 the wrinkled sagamore, an aged Indian chief Membertou, his 
 eyes gleaming with amusement as toast, song, and tale 
 followed one another. On the floor squatted other Indians 
 who joined in the gay revels. As a final item on the 
 programme, the pipe of peace, with its huge lobster-like 
 bowl, went round, and all smoked it in turn until the 
 tobacco in its fiery oven was exhausted. Then, and not 
 till then, the long winter evening was over." 
 
 But in the spring a ship came from St. Malo with the 
 tidings that the King had revoked de Monts' charter, and 
 after efforts on the part of Poutrincourt and his son, 
 Biencourt, to linger and retain their hold upon Acadia, the 
 French were forced for a time to retire. The English, 
 meanwhile, had got a footing in Virginia, and an adventurer 
 named Argall came from thence and utterly destroyed 
 Port Royal, as encroaching upon the territories of the 
 English. He even caused the names of de Monts and other 
 officers and the fleur-de-lis to be defaced with pick and
 
 io NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 chisel from the massive stone upon which they had been 
 graven. Biencourt fled to the forest, and for a time con- 
 sorted with the Indians, leading a semi-savage existence. 
 From this dates the long struggle, lasting for a century 
 and a half, for the possession of Acadia a conflict that was 
 not ended until Wolfe's victory at Quebec and the surrender 
 of New France. 
 
 Eight years after ArgalPs inroad in 1621, James VI. of 
 Scotland conferred on one of his courtiers, Sir William 
 Alexander, the whole territory which the French dominated 
 Acadia. 
 
 But in lieu of joining with them to build up a New 
 England, he resolved, by the favour of the King, to engage 
 his countrymen in extending the glory of their native land 
 by founding a New Scotland across the ocean. " Being 
 much encouraged hereunto by Sir Ferdinando Gorge l and 
 some others of the undertakers for New England, I show 
 them that my countrymen would never adventure in such 
 an enterprise, unless it were as there was a New France, a 
 New Spain, and a New England, that they might likewise 
 have a New Scotland." 
 
 1 Sir Frederick Gorges, Governor of New Plymouth.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 NEW SCOTLAND'S BEGINNINGS 
 
 IT is a fact worth emphasis, but too little considered, that 
 New Scotland sprang, as it were, direct from the loins of 
 Old Scotland, and that both Old and New England looked 
 on as non-agents passively. 
 
 To-day of the Provinces which make up the Dominion 
 of Canada, New Scotland is the only one boasting a flag of 
 its own, owing nothing in its composition to either the flag 
 of England or that of France. Here one may see unfurled 
 a white flag with a blue St. Andrew's Cross (saltier) dividing 
 the " field " in four, while in the centre is the double- 
 tressured lion of Scotland, the ruddy lion rampant in gold. 
 This is the flag of New Scotland, and these were the arms 
 of Sir William Alexander, still figuring in part of the 
 arms of the Baronets of Nova Scotia, to which famed 
 order Sir Arthur Wardour, one remembers, was proud to 
 owe allegiance. 
 
 To Sir William Alexander the grant was made by 
 James VI. of Scotland of lands lying between New 
 England and Newfoundland, " to be holden of us from our 
 Kingdom of Scotland as a part thereof;" 1 on the 2pth 
 September, 1621, the Charter passed under the Great 
 Seal. Sir William Alexander was appointed hereditary 
 
 1 Sir William Alexander and the Scottish attempt to colonise Acadia^ 
 by the Rev. George Patterson, D.D.
 
 12 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Lieutenant-General of the colony, which was in all future 
 time to have the name of New Scotland, or, as appears in 
 the courtly Latin of the charter, Nova Scotia, the first time 
 such name appears in history, and at this day itself the only 
 permanent memorial of the undertaking. 
 
 The charter goes on to say : " As it is very important 
 that all our beloved subjects who inhabit the said Province 
 of New Scotland or its borders may live in the fear of 
 Almighty God, and at the same time in His true worship, 
 and may have an earnest purpose to establish the Christian 
 religion therein, and also to cultivate peace and quiet with 
 the native inhabitants and savage aborigines of these lands, 
 so that they, and any others trading there, may safely, 
 pleasantly, and quietly hold what they have got with great 
 labour and peril. We . . . give and grant to the said 
 Sir William Alexander and foresaids . . . free and absolute 
 power of arranging and securing peace, alliance, friendship, 
 mutual conferences, assistance, intercourse, &c." The 
 charter also granted the power of attacking suddenly, 
 invading, expelling, and by arms driving away ... all and 
 singly those who without their special license should attempt 
 to occupy these lands, or trade in the said Province of 
 New Scotland. Authorisation was also given them to 
 construct " forts, fortresses, castles, &c., with posts and 
 naval stations, and also ships of war : " to " establish 
 garrisons of soldiers, and generally to do all things for the 
 acquisition, increase, and introduction of people and persons 
 to preserve and govern New Scotland ... as the King 
 might do if present in person." The right of regulating 
 and coining money was also granted : and these and other
 
 SEEKING IMMIGRANTS 13 
 
 privileges involved only the annual payment of "one penny 
 of Scottish money, if so much be demanded." 
 
 Sir William, soon after obtaining his patent, arranged 
 for the transfer of his rights in the island of Cape Breton, 
 which originally was included in the Province of New 
 Scotland, to his friend Sir Robert Gordon, of Lochinvar. 
 The latter, with his son Robert, obtained a royal charter 
 (dated 8th November, 1621) to this, which was styled the 
 barony of New Galloway. 
 
 No time was lost by Sir William in taking the necessary 
 steps for the settling of his territory. Fitting out a ship 
 in London, in March, 1622, he sent it round the coast to 
 Kirkcudbright, hoping to obtain there a body of emigrants, 
 through the influence of Sir Robert Gordon, whose lands 
 lay in that direction. The meagre inducements offered, 
 however, could hardly attract persons possessed of the 
 ordinary comforts of home life. Purchasers of land were 
 the only ones to have any rights in the soil. Farmers 
 might obtain leases ; but all, after a specified time, were 
 constrained to pay a one-thirteenth part of the revenue from 
 the land to the Lieutenant-General. Artisans might 
 receive holdings, but only for their lives. So it is recorded 
 that there was only one artisan, a blacksmith, took part in 
 the expedition, the other emigrants being generally agri- 
 cultural labourers of the lowest class. It is unlikely, how- 
 ever, that more favourable terms were offered in any of the 
 early attempts at settlement in America, or that the 
 material engaged in them was any better. If Sir William 
 had offered lands in fee his prospective emigrants would 
 probably have been of an altogether different class of the
 
 H NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 class of men who, being possessed of the means of subsistence, 
 could have become attached to the soil, and who in time 
 would have built up a free and prosperous society. But a 
 system such as this was totally opposed to the social ideas 
 of the times times when the most prevalent idea was to 
 establish overseas a state of society similar to that of 
 mediaeval Europe, the soil in the possession of certain lords 
 paramount, and the settlers holding their lands in a con- 
 dition little above that of serfs. 
 
 The two colonising expeditions undertaken in conse- 
 quence of the charter cost Alexander a large sum of money, 
 and both ended in failure, owing to ill-management. This 
 failure by no means dampened Sir William's zeal. In 1624 
 he issued a small work entitled, An Encouragement to 
 Colonies, which was furnished with a map of New Scotland. 
 The names given on this show the determination to repro- 
 duce the peculiarities of Scotland, even in minor ways. 
 In this manner the St. Croix River appears as the Tweed, 
 while another, flowing from its head into the St. Lawrence, 
 is named the Solway. The river doubtless intended for 
 the St. John is called the Clyde, and the inlet of the sea 
 on the coast of New Brunswick is put down as the Forth. 
 
 In this work Sir William depicts New Scotland as having 
 " very delecate meadowes," " with roses white and red," 
 and " very good, fat earth," as the voyagers in the St. Luke 
 had seen it along the coast. As a further inducement for 
 early occupation, he added a mention of rich grains, and an 
 abundance of fowls and fishes. Scotland he referred to as 
 like a bee-hive, sending out swarms of her people yearly, 
 who expended their energies in foreign wars. He then
 
 THE NEW BARONETAGE 15 
 
 invited Scotsmen to settle in a new country, where success- 
 ful commerce might be prosecuted by the merchant, where 
 the sportsman might enter into a paradise of his own, and 
 where the Christian might have ample scope for missionary 
 enterprise. 
 
 " Where," was his argument, " was euer Ambition 
 baited with greater hopes than here, or where euer had 
 Vertue so large a field to reape the fruits of Glory, since any 
 man who doth goe thither of good qualitie, able at first 
 to transport a hundred persons with him, furnished with 
 things necessary, shall have as much Bounds as may serve 
 for a great Man, whereupon he may build a Towne of his 
 owne, giving it what forme or name he will, and being the 
 first Founder of a new estate, which a pleasing industry 
 may quickly bring to a perfection, may leaue a faire inherit- 
 ance to his posteritie, who shall claime unto him as the 
 author of their Nobilitie there, rather than to any of his 
 Ancestours that had preceded him, though neuer so nobly 
 borne elsewhere ? " 
 
 But despite the glowing prospects enumerated in this 
 Encouragement to Colonies, little enthusiasm was excited 
 on behalf of the undertaking. When the English treasury 
 refused to compensate Alexander for losses in a matter in 
 which it had no concern, a new method was suggested, 
 whereby his embarrassments might be relieved and the 
 undertaking carried on. James, since his accession to 
 the English throne, had systematically replenished his 
 revenues by the simple method of selling titles. A par- 
 ticular instance of this was the colonisation of Ulster ; when 
 he shortly before created an order of knights baronets, of
 
 16 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 which English landowners might become members on their 
 paying into the exchequer the sum of 1100. By this 
 means some 205 persons had obtained the new dignity 
 between 1611 and 1622, the profit to the treasury being 
 225,000. This suggested to Sir William that the ex- 
 penses of his colony might be provided for by the establish- 
 ment of a new order the baronets of New Scotland while 
 less costly terms might serve as inducements for the Scottish 
 landowners and the sons of the Scottish nobility to become 
 members. His recommendation of this plan in due course 
 brought forth a royal letter, which informed the Privy 
 Council of Scotland that the King had determined to take 
 a personal interest in the colonisation of New Scotland, and 
 to establish a new order of baronets in connection there- 
 with. The Privy Council were invited to assist in the 
 carrying out of the royal intention. 
 
 The council, influenced by Sir William, approved the 
 royal order, and replied to the King on the 23rd November, 
 1624, indicating a scheme for following His Majesty's 
 wishes. " We are given to understand that the country 
 of New Scotland, being dividit into twa Provinces and cache 
 Province into several Dioceises or Bishoprikis, and each 
 Diocese in thrie Counteyis, and each Countey into ten 
 Baroneyis, every baronie being three myle long vpon the 
 coast and ten myle up into the countrie, dividit into sax 
 parodies, and each paroche contening sax thousand aikars 
 of land ; and that every Baronett is to be ane Barone of 
 some one or other of the saidis Barroneis, and is to haif 
 therein ten thousand aikars of propertie, besidis his sax 
 thousand aikars belonging to his bur* (burgh) of baronie,
 
 FIRST SCOTS SETTLEMENT 17 
 
 to be holden free blanshe, and in a free baronie of His 
 Majesty as the baronies of the kingdome." The conditions 
 imposed were " the setting furth of six men towardis His 
 Maiestie's Royall Colonie, armed, apparelld and victualled 
 for two yeares, and every baronet paying Sir William 
 ane thousand markis Scottis money only toward his past 
 charges and endevouris." 
 
 As for these Nova Scotia baronetcies, great efforts were 
 made to induce likely persons to accept them. In 1629 
 six were created and thirteen in the two years following. 
 The Commissioners were impowered to fill up the dates 
 of patents at their discretion, " so that those unwilling 
 to occupy a lower place on the rolls might be reckoned 
 amongst the earliest creations." Nor was the outer attrac- 
 tiveness of the order neglected. Under date of the I7th 
 November, 1629, the King authorises " everie one of them 
 and thare heires male to weare and carry about their 
 neckis, in all time coming, ane orange tauney ribbane, 
 whairon shall hing pendant on a skutchion argent, a saltoire 
 azeur thereon, ane inscutcheune of the armes of Scotland, 
 with ane imperial! croune above the scutchone, and incircled 
 with this motto : * Fax Mentis Honestae Gloria.' " This 
 was to be proclaimed publicly at the market cross of 
 Edinburgh. And any one who should, " out of neglect 
 or contempt, presume to tak place or precedence of the 
 said baronettes, thare wifes or childring, or to weare thare 
 cognoissance," was in the same paper threatened with fine 
 and imprisonment. 
 
 A Scottish settlement was planted on the shores of 
 
 Annapolis Basin ; but the settlers seem to have been little 
 
 B
 
 1 8 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 prepared for the rigours of a Nova Scotian winter and the 
 enmity of the Indians, for no fewer than thirty of the 
 pioneers died. Meanwhile, Sir William Alexander's son, 
 bearing the same name, had succeeded ; and, arriving in 
 New Scotland, proceeded to put affairs into better order. 
 He dealt so dexterously with the aborigines, that their 
 chief consented to make a journey to England with his 
 wife and son, where they enjoyed the absurd titles of King, 
 Queen, and Prince of New Scotland. In the December of 
 1629, Sir James Bagg, Governor of Plymouth, was directed 
 by royal letter to conduct to Court " one of the commanders 
 (or chiefs) of Canada, attended by some others of that 
 countrie." In a letter from Christ College, dated the 
 1 2th of February, 1630, the Rev. Joseph Mead wrote : 
 
 " There came last week to London the king, queen, 
 and young prince of New Scotland. This king comes to 
 be of our king's religion, and to submit his kingdom to 
 him, and to become his hostage for the same, that he 
 may be protected against the French in Canada. Those 
 savages arrived at Plymouth, were a while entertained at 
 my Lord Poulet's in Somersetshire, much made of, especially 
 my lady of the savage queen. She came with her to the 
 coach, when they were come to London, put a chain about 
 her neck with a diamond valued by some at near 20. 
 The savages took all in good part, but for thanks or acknow- 
 ledgment made no sign or expression at all." 
 
 Meanwhile Biencourt, the representative of De Monts 
 and the original French settlers, together with two enter- 
 prising spirits named De la Tour, father and son, were 
 holding on for King Louis in Acadia. When Biencourt
 
 SCOTTISH SETTLERS DISPERSE 19 
 
 died, Charles De la Tour meditated striking a blow for 
 French supremacy. In this he was perpetually foiled, his 
 father was captured by Admiral Kirke and taken to England, 
 where he was caressed and cajoled, married a Court lady, 
 and was created a Baronet of Nova Scotia. As Sir Claude 
 he went out to New Scotland to endeavour to seduce his 
 son Charles from his allegiance, but in vain. New Scotland, 
 as a British settlement, was doomed. In 1632 the blow 
 fell. By the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, Nova Scotia 
 and Canada were ceded back to France by Charles I., who 
 by this act of treachery achieved what French force had 
 hitherto failed to accomplish. Nevertheless, the King 
 wrote a letter to the Privy Council, in which he says : 
 " lest any mistaking should ensure thereupon, we have 
 thought it good to declare unto you that it (the Treaty) 
 is in no ways for quitting the title right or possession of 
 New Scotland or of any part thereof." But this, in view 
 of the actual terms of the Treaty, and of its consequences, 
 was empty language. The settlers of New Scotland dis- 
 persed or mingled with the French, and the first attempt 
 to establish a New Scotland ended in failure. 
 
 I have dwelt somewhat fully upon this project the 
 beginnings of New Scotland because it is one almost 
 invariably slurred over by historians, and about which much 
 ignorance exists. I shall have occasion in later pages to 
 speak of the essentially Scottish character of New Scotland, 
 and it is as well to recall its early planting by the Alexanders, 
 the Frasers, the Gordons, and the MacNeills. 
 
 Of the subsequent history of Nova Scotia I can here 
 touch upon only briefly. England's next ruler, Oliver
 
 20 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Cromwell, recovered what Charles had basely surrendered, 
 and Acadia became again Nova Scotia : but this position 
 was again changed in 1667, when Charles II. gave away 
 what Cromwell had won, that is to say, " all the country 
 called Acadia situated in America which the Most Christian 
 King had formerly enjoyed." Another war, however, 
 soon came between England and France, after the ex- 
 pulsion of James II. Port Royal was compelled to sur- 
 render to a British force from Boston, and Nova Scotia 
 had again changed hands. The country reverted to the 
 French through a Treaty of King William III.'s in 1697 ; 
 but at the end of a further war, in 1713, the mainland of 
 Nova Scotia had again passed into the possession of the 
 British, a position which has never since changed. France 
 retained her hold on Cape Breton Island and the neighbour- 
 ing Isle St. Jean (now Prince Edward Island), until Canada 
 was conquered in 1759. 
 
 To reach these results many battles were] fought, 
 and many interesting historical events happened in New 
 Scotland as, for instance, the two sieges of Louisbourg, 
 and the famous expulsion of the Acadians, celebrated in 
 Longfellow's poem " Evangeline." 
 
 When the French power was finally shattered, the total 
 white population of Nova Scotia was only some 13,000, 
 of which 2000 were French. The capital, Halifax, was a 
 little garrison town only fourteen years old, and comprising 
 some 500 families. Settlers from the neighbouring New 
 England colonies caused a considerable increase in this 
 number, and additions came from King George's German 
 kingdom of Hanover. Afterward, when the American
 
 A LAND OF ROMANCE 21 
 
 colonies had thrown off their allegiance, some 20,000, who 
 either would not or could not remain in their old homes 
 under a new flag, migrated to Nova Scotia, calling them- 
 selves the United Empire Loyalists. Many of these, 
 however, settled on the north-west side of the Bay of 
 Fundy a region which, then under the Governor of Nova 
 Scotia, was afterwards formed into a separate Province, 
 now known to us as New Brunswick. From that time to 
 the present day Nova Scotia's history has been one of 
 uninterrupted peace. 
 
 Thus briefly have I presented to the reader the salient 
 features in Provincial history, a subject upon which more 
 than one interesting volume has been penned. Of its 
 romance and it is a land teeming with romance there 
 is hardly a hill or a valley, a lake, an island, or a headland, 
 that has not some tradition, some legend, some story of 
 massacre, of sacrifice, of heroism, or of devotion I have 
 so far hinted but little. Its shrines are visited by thousands 
 of Americans annually. This is the land past which the 
 British visitor to Canada finds himself whirled, and is 
 soon at the heart of the great Dominion of the West, with- 
 out having seen its smiling crest, or touched its outstretched 
 hand.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 NEW SCOTLAND'S CHARACTERISTICS 
 
 ONE finds it difficult, briefly by means of analogy, to 
 describe this peninsula of New Scotland. Yet it may not 
 unfairly be compared to Old Scotland. Many of the 
 features of the land are the same, nor is the climate unlike. 
 But when we come to the human element we have no diffi- 
 culty at all. Mixed as the population is, the Scots pre- 
 dominate. The late Lieutenant-Governor was a Fraser. 
 The present holder of the office is a Macgregor, the Premier 
 is a Murray, the Mayor of Halifax is a Chisholm. The 
 Frasers, Macdonalds, M'Gillivrays, Wallaces, and M'Inneses 
 furnish forth the bench, the bar, journalism, and the learned 
 professions ; and it is perhaps needless to tell you that 
 the Scot here, as elsewhere in Canada, more than holds his 
 own " and maybe that of ither folk " in the commercial 
 world. 
 
 But this is not saying enough about New Scotland 
 considered as a transatlantic habitation and hunting-ground 
 of the Old Scot. Here are still Gaelic communities where 
 the Sassenach tongue is not heard. On the eve of the 
 American Revolution a tide of emigration had set in from 
 the old Scotland to the new, the first to arrive being a 
 shipload of Highlanders in 1773. For many years, despite 
 the terrible conditions of an ocean passage in those days,
 
 THE NOVA SCOTIANS 23 
 
 the tide flowed on. Emigrants, in the old days, were 
 forced to spend weeks or even months on the voyage, 
 pent like cattle in ships frequently infected by small-pox 
 and scurvy. 
 
 Some 25,000 Scottish peasants settled on Cape Breton 
 Island alone, while numbers landed on the shores of 
 Northumberland Strait, in the counties now known as 
 Pictou and Antigonish. Their hardships were not over 
 when they landed ; but with indomitable pluck they per- 
 severed until they had carved homes for themselves out of 
 the forest. 
 
 From one end of the peninsula to the other the ceme- 
 teries are rilled with the tombs of the Erasers and the Mac- 
 donalds, the Macleans and the M'Nabs. At Shelburne, 
 that " dead city " of the Loyalists, I copied out a lengthy 
 inscription on a granite stone to a Loyalist heroine : 
 
 THE WIFE OF JOHN MACLEAN 
 
 WHO DIED 28TH MARCH, 1791, AGED 32 YEARS 
 
 She left her native country, Scotland, and numerous friends and 
 companions, to follow the fortunes of her husband during the war 
 with America in 1780. And when New York became no longer 
 an asylum to loyalty, she joined him again on the rugged shore 
 of Nova Scotia as an affectionate and faithful wife, a cheerful 
 and social friend, humane and charitable, and pious as became 
 a good Christian. 
 
 Another elsewhere oddly records that : " Here lies 
 Angus M'Donald and his five sons, who lived ever on the 
 side of the King, and died on this side of the Ocean." 
 
 No ; New Scotland is no misnomer ; and the Patron
 
 24 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Saint of the Province is and may it long continue so to be 
 St. Andrew. 
 
 Although the Scots thus prevail, the other inhabitants 
 of the Province are an eighteenth century mixture of the 
 Old and New Worlds of three great European races. 
 Cape Breton and the eastern part of the peninsula is Scotch, 
 the extreme west is French-Acadian, there is a settlement 
 of Germans in the middle, and the rest of the population, 
 save for a small sprinkling of aboriginal Micmacs, is English 
 the fruit of the Loyalist immigration from America. 
 
 Nova Scotia, which is connected with the North 
 American Continent by a narrow isthmus, lies roughly 
 within the same degrees north latitude as the territory 
 between the Pyrenees and Lake Geneva. It is 360 miles 
 long, with an average breadth of 65 miles, and covers an 
 area of 20,900 square miles, i.e. over two-thirds that of 
 Scotland. No part of the entire peninsula is more than 
 thirty miles from the sea. The surface of the country is 
 very undulating, though not mountainous, the highest 
 ridge not being 1200 feet in height. Yet the Province 
 boasts several of these ridges or chains of hills, to which it 
 gives the name of mountains, generally running parallel 
 to its length. Its picturesqueness is chiefly attributable to 
 its numerous and beautiful lakes, its harbours dotted with 
 islands, its rivers and streams, and a pleasing variety of 
 highland and valley. Looked at from the Atlantic side, 
 the country seems barren and rocky. 
 
 The seaward coast of the Province has been likened to a 
 granite wall, indented by innumerable bays, fiords, and 
 inlets. Wide and sandy beaches sweep gradually towards the
 
 A FERTILE INTERIOR 25 
 
 firm soil, from headland to headland ; quaint and quiet 
 fishing villages and hamlets underlie the rocks, sentinelled 
 by countless islands along the coast. At every point, too, 
 history and legend are here to throw a mantle over the 
 scene to mingle its rays with those of the sun and moon. 
 Here are tales of French and English adventure, of Indian 
 raid, storm, wreck, of buccaneers and buried treasure, all 
 the way from Cape North to Cape Sable. But if the 
 Atlantic shore is seemingly sterile and iron-bound, bearing 
 in this respect a striking resemblance to the east coast of 
 Old Scotland, it is far otherwise with the interior. The 
 peach and the grape ripen in the open air, and the growth 
 of maize and root crops might well excite the envy of a 
 farmer in Perthshire or Elgin. Even in those districts 
 where the scorched and leafless stems of giant pines rear 
 their arms upward as if in appeal to Heaven, if the traveller 
 will leave the railway and penetrate to the land beneath, 
 he will see a vegetation almost rank, of raspberry, wild 
 rhododendron, alder and crimson sumach, telling of the 
 fertility of the soil. Where the surface is not fertile, the 
 riches are beneath, in the form of coal, iron, gypsum, and 
 other minerals : but there are few parts of the Province 
 where grass suitable for sheep and cattle raising does not 
 abound. 
 
 Then when we get on the North, or " Fundy Side," 
 of the peninsula, we meet the broad alluvial plains, inter- 
 sected by tortuous rivers or indented by wide and crooked 
 basins, floored with red mud which the ebb-tide reveals, 
 as though each were a ruddy gash in the bosom of Mother 
 Earth. This is the land of the monstrous Fundy tides,
 
 26 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 whose high-mounting, foaming " bore," or tidal wave, 
 sweeps irresistibly shoreward, making the smallest creeks to 
 fill like turbulent rivers, but met and baffled along the low- 
 lying shore by the " dykes " which were first reared by the 
 Norman peasants three centuries ago, reclaiming the rich 
 marsh land from the salt tide, and only here and there 
 permitting the fertilising ocean to trickle in at certain 
 seasons to reinvigorate the soil. Here is situated, too, 
 that " hundred miles of apple-blossoms," otherwise known as 
 the Annapolis Valley, sheltered between the North and South 
 Mountains, and also the famous marshes of Tantramar. 
 
 At the other and eastern end of this peninsula stands 
 Cape Breton Island, a province in itself, cut off by the 
 Strait of Causo, one of the most picturesque of regions, 
 itself reversing, as has been said, the definition of an 
 island, inasmuch as it is land surrounding a body of water. 
 That golden arm of the sea the Bras d'Or lakes nearly 
 divides the land into two halves both rich in the natural 
 diversifications of hill and dale, crag and fell, forest and 
 moor, and many streams and islets. 
 
 Everywhere are the shores indented, often to the 
 extent of several miles, with harbours, rivers, coves, and 
 bays, usually connecting with the interior waters. The 
 loftiest cliffs, about 500 feet high, lie on the coast 
 between Mahone and Margaret's Bay, and is generally the 
 first land descried by voyagers from Europe or the West 
 Indies. From the summit of Ardoise Hill, between Halifax 
 and Windsor, which is 700 feet high, one may command 
 a prospect of Windsor, Falmouth, Newport, Wolfeville, and 
 the basin of Minas country. Further on to the west are the
 
 ABUNDANCE OF LAKES 27 
 
 Horton Mountains, running nearly north and south, and 
 twenty miles beyond begins another chain of hills, traversing 
 east and west, the North Mountain and the South Moun- 
 tain, the former of which is washed by the Bay of Fundy. 
 Between these two ridges lie the fertile Annapolis and 
 Cornwallis valleys. 
 
 To the great inequality of the surface of the soil is 
 due the prevalence of so many lakes, the largest in the 
 peninsula being Rossignol, twenty miles from Liverpool up 
 the Mersey River. There used to be a great uncertainty con- 
 cerning the dimensions of this inland lake which Haliburton 
 thought was thirty miles long ; but it is now known to be 
 twelve miles in length by eight broad. The difficulty 
 seems to have arisen by confusing it with adjoining lakes, 
 of which there are numerous others in the vicinity. About 
 Yarmouth, at the southern extremity of the Province, 
 there are no fewer than eighty ; while, as to Cape Breton 
 Island, the whole interior of the southern half is one vast 
 lake. A chain of lakes almost crosses the Province between 
 Halifax and Cobequid Bay, suggesting many years ago a 
 junction by canal. A company was formed and work 
 begun, but nothing came of it. Another such chain nearly 
 unites the source of the Gaspereaux in King's Country with 
 that of Gold River in Lunenburg. Many of these thousand 
 and one lakes which bejewel the entire interior of New 
 Scotland are of great beauty, containing timbered islands, 
 whose foliage, together with that of the surrounding hills, 
 is most variegated and attractive, especially in autumn, 
 when the scarlet of the maple, the yellow of the birch, 
 and gradations of green of the oak, elm, and pine, present
 
 28 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 a truly gorgeous spectacle. Even in winter, when the 
 ground is covered with snow, the presence of enormous 
 numbers of evergreens is an agreeable feature of the land- 
 scape in most parts of the Province. There are, however, 
 others, which are either stony and barren, or boggy, or 
 where the forest has been the prey of fire. In the latter 
 parts, the " burnt lands," the tall dead trees remain upright, 
 black and forbidding, the picture of desolation. But in 
 these cases, although it is a long time, owing to the fire 
 having destroyed the soil and the seeds within it, before 
 a new growth appears, yet this is easily afforested or con- 
 verted into good arable land. The arable lands, in spite 
 of all that has been done to foster agriculture, still remain 
 only a fraction of the total cultivable part of New Scotland, 
 and these are chiefly confined as yet to the vicinity of 
 the rivers, harbours, and coasts, and the oldest townships. 
 In these, however, the aspect is luxuriant, extensive, 
 and various, reminding one here of the Scottish lowlands, 
 there of Kent or Devonshire, in respect of cultivation 
 and picturesqueness. Even the hedgerows, unknown in 
 America, occasionally greet the eye. 
 
 New Scotland is divided into counties, which are them- 
 selves parcelled into districts and townships. The Scottish 
 origin and element, I am bound to say, do not come out 
 very strong in the names of these counties, such as Halifax, 
 Sydney, Cumberland, Hants, King's, Lunenburg, Liverpool, 
 Shelburne, &c., albeit there are some Scottish names in 
 the districts and townships. 
 
 When all is said of the products of New Scotland, of 
 her coal, her iron, her fish, and her fruit, it still remains
 
 "BLUE-NOSE" PRIDE 29 
 
 that her chief and most notable product is that which is 
 Old Scotland's proudest boast her men. Is it that a 
 seafaring folk are always superior to those who are bred 
 far inland ? Is it that there is a wider outlook, a sense of 
 vicissitude and adventure for the people who are in touch 
 with that vast, restless flood, itself touching far-off climes 
 and changing zones ? Who if they do not sail a ship 
 themselves or battle with storm and breaker, mix with the 
 men who do, who know what it is to grapple with a wreck, 
 what the cry of the widows and orphans of a lost crew 
 is like ? Surely this must breed a stronger soul : or is it, 
 as a Manitoban hinted to me when acknowledging the 
 intellectual superiority of the Nova Scotians, that to a fish 
 diet must be ascribed that which for a century has been 
 so manifest in the history of British North America ? 
 
 Proud is New Scotland of the men who have sprung 
 from her loins. This cherishing of the memory of their 
 worthy forerunners is perhaps the most marked character- 
 istic of Nova Scotians to-day, the one in which this people 
 differs in spirit from their neighbours. 
 
 The term " Blue-nose," long a current one applied to 
 the Nova Scotians, brings me to the New York and New 
 England irruption into the Province at the" period of the 
 American Revolution. As is now widely conceded, the best 
 blood of the American Colonies the oldest, the wealthiest, 
 and the best educated were United Empire Loyalists. 
 
 Amongst the " True Blues," the pioneers of Shelburne, 
 was Gideon White, of Salem, descended from the first 
 white child, Peregrine White, born in New England. 
 To-day, Gideon's grandson, an able lawyer of charming
 
 30 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 manners, lives in Shelburne, and courteously showed me 
 many of the interesting family papers he still possesses. 
 Shelburne is now a small village, but its spacious, grass- 
 grown streets, its Governor's mansion, its thickly strewn 
 churchyard, tell the tale of its past glory. But although 
 the " True Blues " left Shelburne, they scattered them- 
 selves through the Province, and there are hundreds of 
 families who trace their ancestry back to the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 " You can see they're * True Blue,' " said a Yankee derisively. 
 " Now they've gone to live in such a cold country as Nova 
 Scotia they carry their colours in the middle of their faces ! " 
 And so the epithet " Blue-nose " stuck, although it is 
 difficult to say why the nasal appendages of Nova Scotians 
 should be of a more azure tint than those which are blown 
 by the pocket-handkerchiefs of the New England folk 
 since the climate is about the same if anything, less 
 rigorous in the peninsula. 
 
 " Blue-nose," as I have already hinted, has long been a 
 synonym for sloth amongst the Yankees ; but now we hear 
 of Blue-nose booms, Blue-nose " boosters," and Blue-nose 
 hustlers. The " Flying Blue-nose " express, which runs 
 from the Boston docks at Digby to Halifax, might easily 
 give points to many American express trains, besides itself 
 furnishing proof that the term " Blue-nose " is as acceptable 
 to the New Scotlanders as Yankee (i.e. Anglais) is to the 
 New Englanders, through whose less fertile homesteads the 
 " Flying Yankee " rushes. 
 
 Before me as I write is a placard redolent of the new 
 spirit, which is mingling with, yet not destroying the 
 old:
 
 NEW AND OLD SPIRITS 31 
 
 "BOOST" NOVA SCOTIA! 
 
 Do YOU believe that Nova Scotia, acre for acre, is 
 the equal of any other Province of Canada ? 
 
 Do YOU believe that Nova Scotians, man for man, are 
 the equal in intelligence, industry, and ability, of any of 
 the other inhabitants of this planet ? 
 
 If so, lend a hand and "boost" Nova Scotia 1 
 
 "Every town, every county," remarks a Nova Scotia 
 writer, " cherishes traditions of its old families, its first 
 settlers ; of the pious missionary, the minister who gave 
 half his scanty income to redeem the slave ; the adven- 
 turous sea-captain, whose life reads like one of Smollett's 
 novels ; the man who settled half a county ; the evangelist 
 who stirred the souls of men ; the founder of the first 
 academy ; the man who first resisted the insolence of office ; 
 the loyalist who lost all for his flag." 
 
 The Nova Scotians have, more than any other people, 
 been helped to this self-continence, this habit of reverence, 
 by their comparative isolation, by the fact that so many 
 of her sons went out and so few newcomers entered, by 
 there being no destructive spirit of unrest abroad, no 
 substitution of cheaper ideals. No Province in Canada, I 
 had almost written no nation in Canada for is not this 
 the day of small and separate nationalities ? where 
 memories of the past are sweeter where yesterday has a 
 magic that to-day can never impart. Far be it from me 
 to deride this sentiment ; but as my eye glances down the 
 columns of the Nova Scotian newspapers, I find here and 
 there an insistence upon men and events that belong to
 
 32 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 yesterday, indeed, rather than to the day before yesterday ; 
 which must strike the folk of an older civilisation as very 
 odd. Thus in an Amherst paper I find the following : 
 
 OLD BAGATELLE BOARD 
 
 A Relic of the Early Eighties found in the Academy Garret 
 WHEN the old Academy on Acadia Street was being torn down some 
 years ago, a rude bagatelle board was found away up among the 
 rafters. The finders were mystified, and there was only one of the 
 "Old Boys" in town who could throw light on its existence, although 
 since that time the maker of the board has taken up his residence 
 in Amherst. We refer to Will Casey who taught the class in electricity 
 in our technical school so successfully last winter. Even in boyhood 
 he was a mechanical genius, and the bagatelle board was not his 
 first piece of manual work. Will brought the board to school one 
 morning long before the arrival of the -teachers. A ladder was put 
 up to the manhole in the ceiling, the board taken up and the ladder 
 after it. There were four boys late for school that morning. More 
 than one game was played up among the dust and cobwebs. " Len " 
 Wheaton, now a well-known engineer, became an expert ; " Hae " 
 Gaetz, son of Rev. Joseph Gaetz, would occasionally take a hand 
 in the game, and a long-limbed chap from Doherty Creek, who now 
 adorns a New York pulpit, was, if we' mistake not, once admitted 
 into the sacred precincts of the old garret. There were others too, 
 all scattered abroad, but we would like to see them home this year to 
 talk over some of the episodes of our school life in the early eighties. 
 
 All this might have appeared in a Maidstone or Peebles 
 paper, only it would there be descriptive of something 
 which happened in 1830, not in 1880. Here anything 
 that happened a century ago is antiquity indeed, while an 
 occurrence of two or three centuries since is like something 
 before Noah's Ark, i.e. the Mayflower. 
 
 There are some people who never experience a sense of the 
 insignificance of time of what is called the ages. We all 
 know men of ninety some of us know centenarians. Twenty
 
 "JOE" HOWE 33 
 
 such lives and we are back at the beginning of the Christian 
 era even five such lives as Lord Strathcona's, and Columbus 
 had not discovered the New World. But those who do 
 not experience this sense of the real modernity of antiquity, 
 turn their eyes back upon a world of awfulness and mystery, 
 as well as of poetry and beauty. The shortest journey of 
 the memory or the imagination backward is bordered by 
 shadows and by dreams. Men and scenes are not the men 
 and scenes we know, but something quite other and heroic. 
 And the best of it is, it may be so. We can by no means 
 reconcile our knowledge of the world to-day with what has 
 come down to us of that world dead and buried even these 
 hundred years. That is where our poetical faith comes in 
 our refusal to measure the people and customs of long 
 ago by the psychological yard-stick of this our time. We 
 refuse to see in Champlain, Lescarbot, and Poutrincourt, 
 only the seventeenth century equivalent of Mr. Nansen, 
 Dr. Grenfell, and Commander Peary, people who, in spite 
 of their heroic achievements, are surely prosaic folk. 
 
 Something of the glamour of the past is already falling 
 upon the figure of Joseph Howe Nova Scotia's great hero. 
 Nova Scotians speak of Howe as Americans speak of Abraham 
 Lincoln. Throughout the Province, in the towns, the 
 villages, and the countryside, you will find plenty of old 
 men who remember " Joe " Howe in the flesh, who ex- 
 changed greetings with the " patriot, poet, and orator," 
 who, maybe, held his horse, or fetched him a draught, not, 
 I fear, often from the village pump, hut from the village 
 inn, and who, and whose descendants, bear him the same 
 measure of affection which in Ontario is accorded to 
 
 c
 
 34 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Sir " John A " Canada's first Premier, the gifted, wayward, 
 prescient Macdonald. At Truro, two old cronies stood 
 beside the " Joe Howe " falls a picturesque cataract in 
 the woods of the public park. " Fluent, eh, Tom ? " " Oh, 
 aye, Andrew, fluent." " Copious, eh, Tom ? " " Oh, aye, 
 copious." " And noisy, eh ? " " True, noisy." " But 
 
 eternal, Tom ? " " Yes, by G , eternal. Nothing can 
 
 stop Joe Howe, and nothing can stop these falls. They'll 
 go on both of 'em, shining as long as Nova Scotia as 
 long as the world lasts." 
 
 Of other famous names than Howe's there is Haliburton's, 
 of whom I will speak elsewhere in these pages. De Mille, 
 although a native of that former part of the Province 
 known as New Brunswick, wrote here all his novels. There 
 are Sir John Inglis of Lucknow, and General Fenwick 
 Williams of Kars. Samuel Cunard, the first to bridge 
 the Atlantic with a line of steamers, and the founder of the 
 Cunard fleet, was a Halifax merchant. From one single 
 county Pictou came five of Canada's college presidents 
 Dawson of McGill, Grant and Gordon to Queen's, and 
 Ross and Forrest to Dalhousie whereas no other single 
 county probably ever gave so many as two. From Nova 
 Scotia came Sir Charles Tupper and Sir John S. D. 
 Thompson, Prime Ministers of Canada. The present 
 Prime Minister of Canada, Right Honourable Robert Laird 
 Borden, is a Nova Scotian, and represents the constituency 
 of Halifax in the Federal Parliament, and this same province 
 is the birthplace of Mr. William Stevens Fielding, the 
 eminent member of Finance in the cabinet of Sir Wilfrid 
 Laurier.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 HALIFAX AND THE HALIGONIANS 
 
 IN the exact middle of the peninsula of Nova Scotia a 
 triangular piece of land juts out into the Atlantic. To 
 this second peninsula is attached a third, and upon this 
 narrow rocky strip, three miles long by a single wide, a 
 century and a half ago was founded the "Cronstadt of 
 Canada." East and west of Halifax is the sea, but the 
 sea subdued and serene : for on the one hand is the world- 
 famed Halifax harbour, and on the other the river-like 
 north-west arm. In the harbour a thousand ships may 
 ride quietly at anchor : it is always accessible : as it touches 
 the upper end of the town it narrows only to expand again 
 into Bedford Basin ten square miles of peaceful marine 
 haven. On the eastern slope of the little isthmus, Halifax 
 is built, the ground rising from the harbour's edge, some 
 two hundred and fifty feet, to where is reared the great 
 stone citadel, a striking spectacle when viewed from the 
 sea to the ocean-borne traveller striking and significant. 
 
 " Into the mist my guardian prows put forth, 
 Behind the mist my virgin ramparts lie, 
 The Warden of the Honour of the North, 
 Sleepless and veiled am I ! " 
 
 Halifax has been for a century and a half the chief naval 
 and military headquarters of British North America, and 
 
 35
 
 36 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 for some time the sole garrison of regular troops in Canada. 
 Its military spirit dates from its very birth. 
 
 There are greetings of every kind and degree in store 
 for the traveller in parts civilised, uncivilised, barbarous, 
 and savage ; greetings at the portals of the city, effusive, 
 boisterous, vociferous. There is one time-dishonoured 
 greeting that I could dispense with more freely than all the 
 rest, and it is that which awaits the incomer by rail to the 
 capital of New Scotland. Conjure up in your fancy 
 seventeen shaggy, wild-eyed men, in whose visages Celtic 
 traits predominate, standing in a row, brandishing their 
 outflung fists, bawling at the top of their voices, and only 
 prevented from leaping upon the traveller and forthwith 
 tearing him to pieces by a too-slender wooden barrier and 
 you have the spectacle which many a time and oft has con- 
 fronted me at the Halifax railway terminus. For a moment, 
 not understanding the pleasant local custom, with stunned 
 faculties you stand regarding the line of raving madmen, 
 unable to distinguish the diabolical dissyllable they are 
 hurling at your head ; and then a glimmering of the truth 
 comes upon you, your hand-bag and umbrella-case fall from 
 your limp grasp, they are caught up by one of the shrieking 
 phalanx, by whom you are hustled into an open victoria 
 and driven at breakneck speed to a hotel. It is pretended 
 that the natives like this custom that they have grown 
 used to it that as the local poet sings : 
 
 " 'Tis sweet to hear the cabman's honest bark, 
 Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home." 
 
 One Scot, thrillingly ingenious, declares that on arriving
 
 THE HALIFAX CABMEN 37 
 
 at Halifax he surrenders himself to a wonderful illusion, 
 one that I dare hardly mention because of its audacity. 
 He half-closes his eyes and imagines himself reinstated in 
 his rightful chieftainship in the fastnesses of his Highland 
 ancestors, and hears the clansmen shouting at him as they 
 shouted at the returned Malcolm Dhu : " Am faic thu 
 sin ? Am faic thu sin ? Tha mi 'dol do Chualadh ! " 
 and other guttural acclamations, issued with such passionate 
 frenzy and strength of lung as transport him back to the 
 land of his fathers. 
 
 Far otherwise is it with the newcomer by sea. The 
 traveller steams into a smooth and spacious harbour, and 
 suddenly his gaze falls upon the city bathed in sunlight, 
 stretching up from the wharves to the citadel crowned by 
 the glorious flag that (with a few slight alterations and 
 additions) for a thousand years " hath braved the battle 
 and the breeze." 
 
 " I was dressing," wrote Charles Dickens, describing his 
 arrival at Halifax seventy years ago, " about half-past nine 
 next day, when the noise above hurried me on deck. When 
 I had left it over-night it was dark, foggy, and damp, and 
 there were bleak hills all round us. Now we were gliding 
 down a smooth, broad stream, at the rate of eleven miles an 
 hour ; our colours flying gaily ; our crew rigged out in their 
 smartest clothes ; our officers in uniform again ; the sun 
 shining as on a brilliant April day in England, the land 
 stretched out on either side, streaked with light patches of 
 snow ; white wooden houses ; people at their doors ; tele- 
 graphs working ; flags hoisted ; wharfs appearing ; ships ; 
 quays crowded with people ; distant noises ; shouts; men and 
 
 89351
 
 38 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 boys running down steep places towards the pier ; all more 
 bright and gay and fresh to our unused eyes than words 
 can paint them. We came to a wharf, paved with uplifted 
 faces, got alongside and were made fast, after some shouting 
 and straining of cables ; darted, a score of us, along the 
 gangway almost as soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and 
 before it had reached the ship, and leaped upon the firm, 
 glad earth. 
 
 " I suppose this Halifax would have appeared an Elysium, 
 though it had been a curiosity of ugly dullness. But I 
 carried away with me a most pleasant impression of the 
 town and its inhabitants, and have preserved it to this 
 hour. Nor was it without regret that I came home, 
 without having found an opportunity of returning thither, 
 and once more shaking hands with the friends I made 
 that day." 
 
 " The town," he goes on to say, " is built on the side of 
 a hill, the highest point being commanded by a strong 
 fortress, not yet quite finished. Several streets of good 
 breadth and appearance extend from its summit to the 
 water-side, and are intersected by cross streets running 
 parallel with the river. The houses are chiefly of wood. 
 The market is abundantly supplied ; and provisions are 
 exceedingly cheap. The weather being unusually mild at 
 that time for the season of the year, there was no sleigh- 
 ing ; but there were plenty of those vehicles in yards and 
 by-places, and some of them, from the gorgeous quality of 
 their decorations, might have ' gone on ' without altera- 
 tion as triumphal cars in a melodrama at Astley's. The 
 day was uncommonly fine ; the air bracing and healthful ;
 
 THE CAPITAL'S APPEARANCE 39 
 
 the whole aspect of the town cheerful, thriving, and 
 industrious." 
 
 Yet candour compels me to say that the impression 
 made on the visitor by Halifax viewed at close quarters 
 is not as favourable as it might be. One writer does not 
 hesitate to call it " dingy and shabby " ; and this effect 
 is without doubt attributable first to the material em- 
 ployed in building the residential streets, and secondly 
 to the utter neglect in the whole Province of which it is 
 the capital, of architectural beauty. And herein Halifax 
 shows not least its true British conservative character, 
 not to say its London and English provincial city character. 
 For given dull yellow brick as a material, I can show you 
 miles upon miles of Halifax in Camden Town and Bays- 
 water, in Clerkenwell and Bloomsbury. As the ballad in 
 the " Arcadians " runs : 
 
 " When first I came to London town, 
 I thought it dingy, old, and brown." 
 
 I can show you Halifaxes in Liverpool and Glasgow. Let 
 no Londoner of the Georgian or Victorian age, whose 
 architectural taste is represented by Gower Street and 
 Smith Square, reproach the " Warden of the Honour of 
 the North.". At the very beginning an attempt was made 
 to copy London ; and St. Paul's Church, long the pro- 
 cathedral, was built in 1750 on the model of St. Peter's, 
 in Vere Street, Piccadilly. Other houses were constructed 
 on that other Cockney model, which proceeds on the 
 principle that a square wall, with a horizontal upper edge,
 
 40 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 pierced at mathematical intervals with oblong holes for 
 windows, is a facade. 
 
 But an even more serious mistake perhaps it was at 
 first a necessity the founders of Halifax made, in which 
 their successors and descendants have persisted to the 
 present day ; a fundamental and essential mistake which no 
 amount of shaping, and trimming, and painting will ever 
 correct or atone for a mistake which, it is painful to have 
 to record, it is difficult to bring Haligonians to recognise as 
 such they built then and build now their houses entirely 
 of wood. Wooden houses may be cheap, wooden houses 
 may be easy to build, wooden houses may be painted to 
 look like stone or brick, but wooden houses are not for men, 
 but children. People who live in glass houses, we are told, 
 shouldn't throw stones ; and people who live in wooden 
 can't care for posterity, for it is certain that posterity won't 
 care for them. It is not as if stone were not cheap, or brick 
 available the Colonial showed from the first his improvi- 
 dence and his distrust in his future, by building of wood, 
 and the result is what might be expected. Time has not 
 dignified, but detracted. 
 
 " A modern wooden ruin," Haliburton told his fellow- 
 countrymen, " is of itself the least interesting and at the 
 same time the most depressing object imaginable. The 
 massive structures of antiquity, that are everywhere met 
 with in Europe, exhibit the remains of great strength, and 
 though injured and defaced by the slow and almost imper- 
 ceptible agency of time, promise to continue thus mutilated 
 for ages to come. They awaken the images of departed 
 generations, and are sanctified by legend and by tale. But
 
 A CITY OF WOOD 41 
 
 a wooden ruin shows rank and rapid decay, concentrates 
 its interest on one family, or one man, and resembles a 
 mangled corpse rather than the monument that covers it. 
 It has no historical importance, no ancestral record. It 
 awakens not the imagination. The poet finds no inspira- 
 tion in it, and the antiquary no interest. It speaks only of 
 death and decay, and recent calamity and vegetable decom- 
 position. The very air about it is close, dank, and unwhole- 
 some. It has no grace, no strength, no beauty, but looks 
 deformed, gross, and repulsive. Even the faded colour of 
 a painted wooden house, the tarnished gilding of its decora- 
 tions, the corroded iron of its fastenings and its crumbling 
 materials, all indicate recent use and temporary habitation. 
 It is but a short time since this mansion was tenanted by its 
 royal master, and in that brief space how great has been the 
 devastation of the elements ! A few years more and all 
 trace of it will have disappeared for ever. Its very site will 
 soon become a matter of doubt. The forest is fast reclaim- 
 ing its own, and the lawns and ornamented gardens annually 
 sown with seeds scattered by the winds from the surround- 
 ing woods, are relapsing into a state of nature, and exhibiting 
 in detached patches a young growth of such trees as are 
 common to the country." 
 
 " The capital of Nova Scotia," wrote a traveller in 1856, 
 " looks like a town of cards, nearly all the buildings being of 
 wood. There are wooden houses, wooden churches, wooden 
 wharves, wooden slates, and if there are sidewalks these are 
 of wood also. I was pleased at a distance with the appear- 
 ance of two churches, one of them a Gothic edifice, but on 
 nearer inspection found them to be of wood, and took refuge
 
 42 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 in the substantial masonry of the really handsome Province 
 Building and Government House." 
 
 " At least," retorted a Nova Scotian upon a Yankee 
 critic, " we don't go in for wooden nutmegs." 
 
 " You're not smart enough," was the retort, " your 
 very heads are of wood." 
 
 " I fear," remarked a distinguished Episcopal visitor on 
 being shown the city, " your people are not orthodox. 
 They make an idol of wood." 
 
 " My Lord," was Sir Robert Weatherbe's witty re- 
 joinder, " we attach little importance to material things. 
 And remember, 
 
 1 The heathen in their blindness, 
 Bow down to wood and stone.' " 
 
 On Citadel Hill, the crowning height of Halifax, are to 
 be seen obsolete fortifications, begun by the Duke of 
 Kent, and as time went on altered and improved to 
 keep pace with the rapid advances of scientific warfare. 
 In and around Halifax there is now a thoroughly 
 modern system of fortifications ; and improvements and 
 additions to these works are continually being made. 
 The prominent points on the shores and the neighbouring 
 islands are completely equipped with modern quick-firing 
 and disappearing guns, and other forms of defence are not 
 neglected. 
 
 The annual naval and military manoeuvres, of which 
 Halifax used to be the scene, were a great source of interest, 
 and attracted throngs of tourists. One saw the North 
 Atlantic Squadron anchored peacefully in the harbour.
 
 ANNUAL MANOEUVRES 43 
 
 Suddenly there rang out the shrill boatswain's whistle, 
 and there ensued a vision of crews swarming up the rigging, 
 the loosening of sails, the hoisting of anchors, and then, 
 in a few moments, the stately fleet steamed majestically 
 down past the city and out to sea. For " war " had been 
 declared, and the fleet which thus went out to meet the 
 enemy, will itself be the " enemy " on its return, and a fierce 
 bombardment be expected unless the pretence that it is 
 blown to fragments by submarines and torpedoes be success- 
 ful. Meanwhile, the military authorities at the citadel 
 were on the qui vive. The militia was called out, the garri- 
 son were at their guns or at the look-out, the submarine 
 and torpedo engineers were busy laying surface mines and 
 inspecting sunken mines and booms. The tension con- 
 tinued through that day and the ensuing night, until at 
 daybreak the booming of cannon on the York Redoubt 
 announces the approach of the enemy and the beginning of 
 the attack. In all this and the attendant military reviews 
 and sham-fights the whole of Halifax participated, and the 
 glory of the manoeuvres ended in a ball at Government 
 House. 
 
 A change has come over the Imperial aspect of the 
 Province since the Dominion Government took over the 
 naval and military defences of Halifax from the Mother 
 Country. I found Halifax, with its citadel crowned slopes, 
 its wooden houses, its tree-lined avenues bathed in glowing 
 summer sunshine, but Haligonian society with no sunshine 
 in its heart. " Where are the tars of yester-year ? " the 
 belles of Halifax seemed to be saying. " Where are the 
 gallant captains, commanders, lieutenants, sub-lieutenants,
 
 44 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 and middies with whom we waltzed, and flirted, and played 
 tennis, and acted and boated within the North-west arm ? >! 
 I was prepared for this, but not for a similar complaint with 
 regard to the British Army. For on parade, at church, 
 at the Halifax club, were not the regulation uniforms 
 denoting the British officer as much in evidence as ever ? 
 " Oh, those ! " was the supercilious rejoinder of one fair 
 damsel, lying back in a canoe on the shores of Bedford Basin ; 
 " they don't count. They're Canadians" 
 
 To me these officers in their spick-and-span khaki, 
 touched with scarlet, were indistinguishable from the Simon- 
 pure insular breed. But trust a fair Haligonian to know 
 the difference. I was reminded of the saying of a recent 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia, who did not seem 
 very effusive in his welcome of one who wore his Majesty's 
 uniform, just arrived at Government House. " I'm sorry 
 the fellow was offended ; but nobody interests me who 
 reaches Nova Scotia by land" 
 
 And, indeed, it is only recently that many Nova 
 Scotians have taken kindly to the term Canadian as applied 
 to themselves, resembling in this respect the British 
 Columbians of the pre-Confederation and ultra-conser- 
 vative school. 
 
 It certainly has made a" difference, perhaps only tem- 
 porary, to the tone of Halifax society this substitution of 
 a Canadian for the old Imperial establishment. Nor is the 
 idea of a Canadian Navy taken seriously in these social 
 circles. One had only to mention the Niobe and the 
 Rainbow to excite a smile. The officers may turn out 
 to be good fellows, but they will need all their tact,
 
 HALIFAX SOCIETY 45 
 
 good looks, and gallantry to overcome the prejudice the 
 fair Haligonians feel towards them as delegates from 
 Ottawa instead of from the British Admiralty. As for 
 the military, I heard many complaints as to how their 
 men had received their appointments at Ottawa, but none 
 as to how they do their work. And what is better still, 
 they have earned the respect of the British " Tommies," 
 who still form 90 per cent, of the garrison, better paid and 
 better fed than they were under the Imperial regime. And 
 yet such pay and feeding hardly serves to attract the native- 
 born, very few of whom are ready to enlist, so that the 
 garrison is conspicuously undermanned. 
 
 But Halifax is a charming place to live in for all that. 
 It has so long been a naval port and a garrison town, that the 
 family ties between its people and those of England continue 
 to be very numerous. Commercial relations between the 
 two countries have grown to such an extent that the natives 
 have now all that is admirable in English business circles 
 and polite society. A visitor, if given the entree of the best 
 society, must perforce carry away the most kindly recollec- 
 tions of his visit. Whatever his nationality, few places 
 will make more strenuous efforts to give him the greatest 
 enjoyment. And the attractions for the visitor are many, 
 both in and around the town. A favourite drive is along 
 the Point Pleasant Road and up the North-west Arm. A 
 most attractive place is this North-west Arm, and the 
 drive, especially when continued past Melville Island and 
 as far as the Dingle, is a most enjoyable one. 
 
 Attending divine service on the day following my arrival, 
 I tried to listen to the reverend gentleman expatiating in a
 
 46 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 patriarchal, and, I thought, somewhat ungallant way on the 
 duties of women. My eye roved over the interior of the 
 sacred edifice, which is, in many ways, the most interesting 
 in Canada. One of the very first undertakings of the 
 infant colony a century and a half ago was to provide them- 
 selves with a place of worship, and in the original plan of 
 the town one square was reserved for a site. They applied 
 to the British Government, who referred it to Lord Halifax, 
 who attended service at St. Peter's, Vere Street, Piccadilly. 
 His lordship sought out the architect of St. Peter's, got the 
 plans, and sent them out to Nova Scotia. There the frame 
 and other materials were imported from Boston, and in 
 less than a year the colonists were attending service within 
 an exact replica of the London church, which they named 
 St. Paul's. For many years it was used by successive bishops 
 as a cathedral, including both the Inglises, father and 
 grandfather of Sir John Inglis of Lucknow. Richer than 
 any other church in Canada is St. Paul's in mural tablets, 
 and as our eye sweeps the four walls it encounters many 
 historic names. One of these is that of Governor John 
 Parr, the friend and comrade of Wolfe. 
 
 I wish I could speak in praise of Halifax's new cathedral, 
 to which reference will be found elsewhere in these pages. 
 I wish I could plead that as I saw it, merely in process of 
 construction, it would be impossible to render judgment 
 upon it. For to me the whole principle upon which such 
 structures are built is a wrong one. Even the architects 
 have been impelled to issue a kind of manifesto, in which 
 the following interesting statement occurs : 
 
 " Perhaps the greatest disadvantage we of the western
 
 THE NEW CATHEDRAL 47 
 
 world are compelled to undergo in our buildings, in the vast 
 majority of cases at any rate, is the sordid meanness or 
 cheap tawdriness of the surroundings. This condition is 
 so marked in certain portions of America as to quite dis- 
 hearten the conscientious architect at the very inception 
 of his task. Many noble buildings there are such as would 
 become beautiful situations abroad that here seem con- 
 temptible, at odds with their environment." 
 
 It is true they hasten to disclaim such surroundings for 
 Halifax, but go on to say 
 
 " Amid such surroundings any attempt at such glittering 
 splendours as are gathered in, say, the Basilica of Saint Mark 
 at Venice, or such sombre glories of carving and metal as are 
 everywhere present in the cathedral of the debonair city of 
 Seville, would be wholly out of place. Even the unruffled 
 sunlit calm of the English cathedrals may hardly be 
 attempted, much less attained. The city is a northern one, 
 the land one of long winters and deep snows, and over all 
 blows the keen air of the salt sea, that singles out each 
 unprotected bit of masonry, every weak cranny of construc- 
 tion, for attack. Only the hardest and most enduring of 
 materials can undergo such a searching test as the old 
 builders of the town well knew, and much that gives charm 
 to similar buildings of the old world must be frankly dis- 
 pensed with ; the parapets for one, that in every period of 
 the Gothic style as built abroad, heavy and castellated in 
 early work, pieced and lace-like in later times, are almost an 
 integral feature, for these would form pockets for great 
 piles of drifted snow that melting in the spring would 
 surely creep up and into the slates and woodwork of the
 
 48 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 roof. And the heavy floors of irregular flags that so charm 
 the traveller abroad, must perforce be abandoned, for these 
 should rest upon solid earth, and only in a land where the 
 forces of frost are but puny can this be done, while the 
 same force it is that forbids the employment well, of other 
 architectural details that involve care, labour, and expense. 
 I have never heard a more ingenious and disingenuous 
 defence of flimsiness, the whole truth being that Halifax 
 would have liked a first-rate cathedral, but did not like to 
 spend the requisite sum upon it. If these architects had 
 gone to Russia and Northern Germany, not to mention 
 Old Scotland, I dare say they would find that a cold 
 climate is not altogether antagonistic to sound and even 
 elaborate masonry and even to permanence. The whole 
 point is contained in their conclusion, in which it is 
 confessed : 
 
 " The cost of the mediaeval cathedrals was lightly met 
 by the people of the past, but the funds which would be 
 incurred in erecting even such a lifeless and soulless replica 
 as we are only capable of to-day, would be far beyond the 
 capacity of any diocese to gather together." 
 
 So much for the great cathedral of Halifax ! 
 
 Our fellow-citizens in the densely-settled heart of the 
 Empire, you are just beginning to realise the century-old 
 ideals of those in the outer marches. You are just 
 beginning to see the significance of Canadian loyalty- 
 regarded as loyalty to the race, " Because," as Mr. Kipling 
 once wrote to a friend of mine, a Newfoundlander, 
 " the Empire is Us We ourselves : and for the white 
 man to explain that he is loyal is almost as unnecessary
 
 I.\ THE PUIU.IC GARDENS, HALIFAX. 
 
 IN THE PUBLIC GARDENS, HALIFAX.
 
 "SELF-GOVERNMENT" TOWER 49 
 
 as for a respectable woman to volunteer the fact that she 
 is chaste." 
 
 As the solidarity of the British race we ourselves 
 increases, we can take a greater interest in Colonial origins 
 we can be entertained by seeing how each colony reached 
 the same political goal self-government by a different 
 path. 
 
 As Annapolis Royal is the cradle of Canada, so Halifax 
 may be called the cradle of Colonial self-government. 
 Urged by this sentiment, Sir Sandford Fleming, the late 
 engineer-in-chief of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and a 
 most notable Imperialist, not long since conceived a truly 
 original and interesting idea. Imperial ideas are not yet 
 so common that significance may be disregarded by any 
 Briton. At his beautiful house on the North-west Arm 
 that salt-water inlet once called the Sandwich River 
 the keen-eyed, gentle-voiced octogenarian explained to me 
 his scheme, which has already touched the imagination of 
 the Colonies. 
 
 " Whatever," said he, " may be the latitude and longi- 
 tude of each community enjoying the freedom, the justice, 
 the protection, the privileges, and advantages that spring 
 from the British system, they must be mutually interested 
 in this." Helped by the Canadian Club of Halifax, he 
 undertook to erect a memorial tower within the precincts 
 of the city, for the purpose of commemorating the origin 
 here of representative government, and all the benefits 
 which have sprung from it. A few months ago the 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia laid the foundation 
 stone of this memorial tower on an ideal site in a pleasant 
 
 D
 
 50 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 park of one hundred acres, given by Sir Sandford, on the 
 one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the day upon 
 which the first Provincial Assembly was opened at Halifax. 
 Every autonomous portion of the Empire will contribute a 
 commemorative tablet, and the interior of this lofty granite 
 campanile will be a museum bearing upon Colonial history. 
 
 I found Nova Scotia very much interested in the question 
 of technical education. Here, as elsewhere, people do not 
 always grasp the details and possibilities of their own trades 
 and the old gibe at the fishermen, " How many fins has a 
 cod " ? leaving him perplexed and gasping, has its application 
 to other callings as well. 
 
 The Nova Scotia Technical College, which was established 
 by the Provincial Legislature in 1906, is a college of applied 
 science and engineering, and the boast is made for it that it 
 " stands at the head of the first complete system of technical 
 education to be established by any Province or State on the 
 
 continent.' 1 
 
 The college offers thorough courses in civil, electrical, 
 mechanical, and mining engineering. There is a full free 
 scholarship of a value of seventy-five dollars offered for each 
 county in the province, except Halifax and Cape Breton 
 counties, which have two each. The opportunity is now 
 placed within the reach of every boy in the province who 
 has the ambition and talent to acquire a thorough high 
 class training as an engineer. I paid a visit to the college, 
 which is perhaps the finest building in Halifax, and had an 
 interesting chat with the Principal, Mr. Sexton, who is 
 young, ardent, and competent. 
 
 " The college," he told me, " aims to serve the indus-
 
 TECHNICAL EDUCATION 51 
 
 trial life of the province in every possible way. Nova Scotians 
 will be trained to develop the great natural resources of 
 the province, and to captain the Nova Scotian industries 
 of the future. Industrial research will be carried on in 
 the laboratories of the college to solve the problems of 
 the mines and manufactures, and all assistance will be 
 granted towards our industries on a thoroughly scientific 
 basis." 
 
 The college is closely affiliated with Acadia, Dalhousie, 
 King's, Mt. Allison, and St. Francis Xavier colleges. 
 Students in engineering secure there their preliminary 
 two years' general training in science, mathematics, 
 language, &c., and pursue their last two years of specialised 
 professional work at the Technical College. 
 
 The arrangement of dividing the work between the 
 affiliated colleges and the Technical College prevents un- 
 necessary duplication of equipment and expense, obviates 
 educational waste, and is another tribute to the genius of 
 Nova Scotia in education. 
 
 The motto of the Technical College not only indicates 
 its fundamental aspiration, but is an interesting tribute 
 to the new Gaelic spirit. 
 
 " Science for the common weal." 
 " Ealin air son math coitcheann sluaidh." 
 
 Under the Technical College is a whole system of 
 secondary technical schools in practically every industrial 
 centre in Nova Scotia. 
 
 There are technical schools for coal miners, technical 
 schools for stationary engineers, technical schools for artisans,
 
 52 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 technical schools for fishermen, and a Royal Commission on 
 technical education was touring the entire Province at the 
 time of my visit. 
 
 When it was first built, the Halifax dry dock was the 
 largest in North America, and is to-day one of the largest 
 commercial docks. It received at the outset a substantial 
 subsidy from the city of Halifax, and was also allowed 
 exemption from taxes for a period of fifteen years. But 
 despite this help, the dock gave little employment, the 
 number of vessels repaired being comparatively small. The 
 Dominion Government at last realising the importance of 
 such docks as this, granted a bonus to dry docks in various 
 parts of Canada, the docks being, for the purposes of the 
 Act, divided into two classes. The largest docks con- 
 stituting the first class get a bonus of 3^ per cent, for 
 thirty-five years. But Halifax does not benefit under this 
 Act, for its dock is only 585 feet long, instead of the 650 feet 
 that is required. The boats in the Canadian trade are 
 fast becoming of greater length. 
 
 Canada was only in her infancy when the Halifax dock 
 was built, and the large increase in commerce is shown 
 by the pay roll of the Dry Dock Company, which last year 
 paid out eighty thousand dollars in wages. But the capacity 
 of the dock will not now meet the requirements, and it is 
 felt that an extension to 800 feet will be necessary to take 
 the whole trade of the Atlantic coast. To do this, an im- 
 mense coffer dam would have to be built in order to extend 
 the dock seawards, involving an expenditure of about a 
 million dollars and a closure of fourteen months, with men 
 working night and day.
 
 PROVINCIAL NEGROES 53 
 
 But if Halifax is to retain importance it should have 
 a dock which can take and repair the largest ship that sails 
 in the Canadian trade. And this will be the more necessary 
 if Halifax is to be the headquarters for the fast boats of the 
 C.P.R., the Allan Line, the Grand Trunk Pacific, and the 
 Canadian Northern Railway. 
 
 On the whole a comfortable, tranquil, pleasant city is 
 Halifax, somewhat qualified,! am inclined to add, by Grafton 
 Street, a unique thoroughfare where bedizened women, 
 negroes, Indians, Chinese, and whites congregate in a sort 
 of extra-barrackian squalor. Such a spectacle is familiar in 
 garrison towns in the tropics, but here in Canada its incon- 
 gruity is almost disconcerting. A movement is on foot for 
 the eradication of this district. 
 
 Apropos of negroes, one sees a great many of these in 
 and about Halifax, and in other parts of the Province. 
 
 They came hither, of course, in large numbers from the 
 American Southern States in the ante-bellum slavery days. 
 Nova Scotia was then the favourite asylum of coloured 
 refugees, and their descendants I do not think have de- 
 generated. On the whole they form a dirty, good-humoured, 
 retrograde feature of the population. Eighty years ago 
 Great Britain awarded, on account of their ancestors, the 
 refugees, a donation to America of one million sterling, as 
 compensation to the American planters whose slaves were 
 carried off in order to enjoy the comforts of political 
 freedom and physical starvation under the British flag in 
 Nova Scotia, an award long and properly ridiculed by its 
 beneficiaries, the Americans. 
 
 I suppose I need hardly mention that the Nova Scotian
 
 54 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 negroes are fully as " religious " as their American breth- 
 ren. 
 
 It was in 1796 that between five and six hundred 
 Maroons were brought here from Jamaica. In that island 
 they had been wild and desperate rebels. Descendants of 
 the original African slaves, they had escaped and made 
 their home in the glens and caves of the mountains, sallying 
 down to rob and plunder the white settlements and deriding 
 all attempts at capture. At length a number of Cuban 
 dogs were requisitioned to hunt down these outlaw Maroons, 
 who, panic-stricken at this, surrendered, and were ordered 
 to be carried to Nova Scotia. At Halifax they were lodged 
 in tents on the outskirts of the town, but were later trans- 
 ferred to Preston, where the Jamaican Government granted 
 them a sum of money towards their support. The ex- 
 perience of a few winters showed how utterly helpless they 
 were, and the bulk of them were ordered off to Sierra Leone. 
 
 Years ago I talked with an aged Sierra Leone darkey, 
 who, though unable to read or write, and had relapsed into 
 many of the savage ways of his ancestors, yet asked after 
 Halifax with affection. " Me member him well," he said, 
 " me born there. Me go back some day." That was 
 twenty years ago, and my sable Haligonian has probably long 
 been gathered to his fathers. Albeit, not all the Maroons 
 left for Africa. Some remained, and their descendants 
 occasionally muster in great force about the city, especially 
 on market days, and they may also be seen brooding about 
 the wharves.
 
 BRDFORD BASIN NEAR HALIFAX. 
 
 IN THE ENVIRONS OF WINDSOR.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WINDSOR AND "SAM SLICK" 
 
 How many towns are there which make one regret that 
 necessity which compels the visitor to approach them from 
 their ugliest side. One can enter Oxford or Canterbury, to 
 mention two English instances, so as to offend one's aesthetic 
 sense, and to impart an impression which it takes many hours 
 spent in contemplation of more favourable surroundings to 
 efface. So it is with the Nova Scotian town of Windsor. 
 It is all part of the tyranny of railways. It will not happen 
 in the coming day of the airship and air-skiff, when the 
 eager tourist can choose his own spot to alight, and give a 
 wide berth to the purlieus which depress, and the human 
 and architectural crudities which exasperate. 
 
 Windsor is one of the pleas" ntest towns in the Province, 
 the seat of King's College and other institutions of learning, 
 and everlastingly associated with that rare spirit, Thomas 
 Chandler Haliburton. But one must banish its Main 
 Street, thronged with loafers, and its unspeakable Victoria 
 Hotel, where the proprietor sells cigars, presides over the 
 " register," and carries ice-water to his guests in his shirt- 
 sleeves, before one can appreciate that these are only 
 excrescences upon Windsor. 
 
 With a high tide in the beautiful Avon River, dotted 
 with sails, I should first descend in my aerial craft, not 
 
 55
 
 56 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 amidst the pleasing ruins of Fort Edward, now a flourishing 
 golf club, but a mile further away, on a wooded hill at the 
 bottom of the wide shaded drive, facing the brown columned 
 porticoes of King's College. Here, book or cricket-bat in 
 hand, I see eager-faced, alert young figures moving, fine 
 types of Canadian youth, who will presently go out to 
 furnish forth the pulpits and colleges, the bench and the 
 bar of Canada's to-morrow. It is a great wooden building, 
 with Ionic portico, flanked by other buildings, the chapel, 
 and hall and library. All have an old-world look, especially 
 the spacious hall where many paintings adorn the walls. 
 The college was chartered by George III. in 1788, and 
 has in its time turned out many distinguished graduates. 
 Its library is particularly strong in theological works. 
 
 Talking with a King's College professor, he said to me : 
 " I cannot help feeling a particular love for this place, 
 where my father and grandfather were before me educated. 
 I know all its walks and groves, and to me the country 
 round about is the most beautiful in the world. When 
 I think of the stream of graduates dear old King's has 
 sent to all parts of Canada and the United States, I am 
 filled with pride. But there are many things we want to 
 make us a living force to-day. Too much of the educational 
 resources of this Province is frittered away. There are 
 too many small colleges. We want wider activities, and 
 for these we sadly need endowments. We recognise the 
 changing spirit of the age, but we at King's will resist to the 
 death anything which will stultify our principles or destroy 
 the fabric so slowly built up, substituting gymnastics and 
 Esperanto for that real education which leads the mind
 
 SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES 57 
 
 of the student along the paths of righteous conduct and 
 character." x 
 
 From which statement I gather that there will be no 
 " hustling " spirit manifesting itself at King's. 
 
 Hard by the old college is a flourishing collegiate school 
 for boys, and a little further on in our return to the town 
 of Windsor is the Edgehill Seminary, a largely attended 
 Church school for girls. 
 
 The superior culture and refinement of the people of 
 Windsor is exhibited in the streets and houses. In front 
 of these latter stretch beautifully kept lawns ; that at the 
 Anglican rectory, in its trim terraces, being as fine as 
 I have ever seen in England. A famous place for pros- 
 perous-looking churches is Windsor all denominations 
 seem to vie with one another, not only in erecting fine 
 edifices, but in keeping them in an order so irreproachable as 
 to pulpit, chancel, lectern, carpets, cushions, and appoint- 
 ments as would send a thrill of envy through many a 
 harassed English vicar's bosom. 
 
 All the dwellings bespeak a degree of easy comfort and 
 considerable taste, built in a style inferior, it is true, to the 
 houses of the old Colonial period, but superior to the bald 
 and shapeless Noah's Arks which have gone up in their 
 
 1 Haliburton remarks that the "diffusion through the country of a 
 well-educated body of clergymen like those of the Establishment, has had 
 a strong tendency to raise the standard of qualification among those who 
 differ from them ; while the habits, manners, and regular conduct of so 
 respectable a body of men naturally and unconsciously modulate and influence 
 those of their neighbours, who may not, perhaps, attend their ministrations. 
 It is, therefore, doubtless owing in a great measure to the exertions and 
 salutary example of the Church in the colonies, that a higher tone of moral 
 feeling exists in the British provinces than in the neighbouring States."
 
 58 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 thousands and tens of thousands in the towns and villages 
 of Canada since Confederation. 
 
 Can there be, I have often speculated, any occult con- 
 nection between Canadian domestic architecture and 
 the political cohesion of the Provinces ? Why, when the 
 Federal edifice was consummated, did the half million or 
 so little brick or timber edifices which housed the Canadian 
 population suddenly fall down as if at the blast of a trumpet, 
 and a half million colourless, clap-boarded, slant-roofed 
 structures they are not houses or cottages start up instead 
 making home a derision ? I have heard aged inhabitants 
 tell of, and have seen with my own eyes, pre-Confederation 
 houses which it would be a pleasure to dwell in houses 
 built by the merchants and shipbuilders who grew rich 
 in the war of 1812 houses that were built by men who 
 built houses and not barns. But am I not making my 
 complaint too particular ? Is it the case in rural England 
 as well ? Compare the graceful, low-browed, hip-roofed 
 cottages of the past with the yellow brick or cement villas 
 of the present ! How much better is a rude log-hut, 
 half-masked in glowing creeper, than such as these, with 
 their straitened entrys and stairways, and a dozen little 
 square chambers when four generously planned ones would 
 suffice ! 
 
 One of the best built houses I ever saw in my life is 
 in Pictou, walls a foot and a half thick, fine fat timbers, 
 plenty of honest freestone, heaps of cupboard room, and 
 a great dry cellar. A right good, tight good house, built 
 by an old Scotsman in New Scotland nearly a hundred years 
 ago, and as sturdy to-day as the day he built it, although
 
 HASTE IN BUILDING 59 
 
 alas, to-day untenanted. There are plenty of other houses, 
 too, pleasant old-fashioned ones, with wood panelled walls 
 within instead of paper. That is the best place for wood in 
 a house inside inside on the walls, and a great log of it 
 blazing on the hearth. I never can understand why the 
 New Scotlanders go on building wooden houses, when stone 
 is so plentiful and lasts for ever. 
 
 " I'll tell you why," said a native Nova Scotian to 
 me. " One reason is, we haven't any stone-masons to show 
 us how, and the other reason is we're in too much of a 
 hurry. In ten years in five, perhaps in less time, we 
 are prepared to move to sell our house and go into another 
 one. We never look ahead more than ten years. After 
 that, it is posterity ; and Canadians don't worry much 
 about posterity." 
 
 In many places I was struck by the haste with which 
 houses and shops arose and churches were run up. The 
 Roman Catholics of Annapolis Royal wanted of a sudden 
 a new church. The moment their mind was made up they 
 rushed off to a builder and got an estimate for the con- 
 struction of a two-aisled church in pine-wood. I wish 
 you could have seen, as I saw daily, that skeleton of naked 
 timbers arise. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars 
 would be spent by these pious communicants on a wilderness 
 of scantling poles, covered with thin planks, roofed in with 
 tin, painted a sepulchral white, hung within by the por- 
 traits of saints, illuminated by candles, and reverberating 
 with American-organic harmony. To the eye all is well. 
 Appearances are kept up, and the worshipper may, if he is 
 a man of strong imagination, hug the illusion that he is
 
 60 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 worshipping God in a temple altogether adequate to the 
 Almighty. In the capital I saw a cathedral built, as to 
 its interior, of cement, moulded and embossed to simulate 
 stone. Great slabs of a dough-like mixture were scored 
 across longitudinally in order to counterfeit the seams 
 filled with mortar. A few months of labour, and a cheap 
 and colourable imitation of Wells Cathedral resulted. Now 
 all this sort of architectural hypocrisy and makeshift is 
 very well for a Shepherd's Bush Exhibition, in its nature 
 ephemeral, but how will it appear to the eyes of the twenty- 
 first century, not to mention the thirtieth or the fortieth ? 
 Would the old builders, who aforetime reared such stately 
 and beautiful fabrics, who were far poorer than we, and 
 lived in smaller towns and even villages, would they have 
 worked this way and in this spirit ? Rather were they 
 content to add a single stone a day, seven stones a week, 
 three hundred and sixty-five stones a year ; until slowly 
 and surely a holy building arose, to defy time and the 
 elements, and to be a blessed sanctuary for ages yet unborn. 
 What, gentlemen, and O ye pious ladies (whom I suspect 
 of knowing as much about architecture as a Hottentot 
 knows of an Elzevir) what is your hurry ? Do you think 
 the Christian religion and the practice of public worship 
 will not outlast your time, that you are in such haste to 
 quit the old church, chapel, or meeting-house, and run up 
 a showy successor (generally mortgaged), which may deceive 
 a tourist at forty rods, an architect at half a mile, but will 
 never deceive God Almighty or the lawyer who holds a 
 mortgage for it in his pocket, and can only foster a spirit 
 of hypocrisy in the congregation ? Better far worship in
 
 VICTORIA PARK, WINDSOR, N.S. 
 
 NEAR LOCHABER LAKE.
 
 "SAM SLICK" 61 
 
 the open fields than be surrounded by such pitiful archi- 
 tectural mockery. And in the same way, I conjure you, 
 better live in comfortable log cabins, than build an apology 
 for a house, with all " modern conveniences," that you 
 will afterwards come to be ashamed of or if you don't 
 you ought to be. 
 
 All the foregoing train of reflection has been started by a 
 contemplation of a sweet and gentle and unpretentious 
 cottage at Windsor. It is at the end of a short wide avenue 
 of elms. It is low and spacious within. It is the kind of 
 house a poet should live in, and it is now fast going to 
 decay ; nothing is spent by its absentee owner to preserve 
 it, and it is occupied at present by a couple of poor Irish 
 families. This is the house built by, and where once dwelt, 
 Haliburton, Nova Scotia's sole literary celebrity of inter- 
 national renown. When his book, " The Clockmaker, or the 
 Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville " appeared, 
 the whole literary world was taken by surprise, and 
 Christopher North could not praise it enough in the pages 
 of Blackwood. 
 
 Haliburton was a Nova Scotian judge who, with wide 
 reading and a capital literary style, added to a native fund 
 of humour, knew his native Province as none has done 
 before or since. Sam Slick, as a pure literary creation, 
 vies with any of the characters of Dickens. He may be 
 described as a compound of Sam Weller, Alfred Jingle, and 
 Jefferson Brick, and the whole book, or series of books, 
 penned by Haliburton, profess chiefly to give this vulgar, 
 loquacious, astute Yankee pedlar's opinions on American, 
 British, and Nova Scotian men, manners, and institutions.
 
 62 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 For the biting satire contained in these productions Hali- 
 burton was widely blamed ; and in reply to the charge 
 of holding the Yankee up to ridicule, he thus condescended 
 to explain his object : 
 
 " In the Canadas," he wrote in 1838, " there is a party 
 advocating republican institutions and hostility to every- 
 thing British. In doing so they exaggerate all the advan- 
 tages of such a form of government, and depreciate the 
 blessings of a limited monarchy. In England this party 
 unfortunately finds too many supporters, either from a 
 misapprehension of the true state of the case, or from a 
 participation in their treasonable views. The sketches 
 continued in the present and preceding series of the Clock- 
 maker, it is hoped, will throw some light on the topics of 
 the day, as connected with the design of the anti-English 
 party. The object is purely patriotic." 
 
 In exposing the faults and the follies of the Nova 
 Scotians, Haliburton claimed that he had " done a good deal 
 of good. It has made more people hear of Nova Scotia than 
 ever heard tell of it afore by a long chalk ; it has given it 
 a character in the world it never had afore, and raised the 
 vally of rael property there considerable." 
 
 At all events, Sam Slick soon became a household word, 
 and so high was he held in the esteem of the Yankees that, 
 long after Haliburton had left the Province, long indeed 
 after his death, thousands of Americans came to pay a 
 visit to his dwelling here in Windsor, long known as the 
 " Sam Slick house." Many to-day know of Sam Slick who 
 do not know of Haliburton. His writings present an 
 admirable picture of the Province seventy or eighty years
 
 A COLONIAL AUTHOR 63 
 
 ago ; and much of what he described then is true to-day. 
 It cannot be said that he was a neglected author, or that he 
 lacked a due appreciation of his own merit. In one of his 
 own chapters he boldly recommends himself to preferment 
 at the hands of the British Government, as a clever Colonial 
 author who is worth being taken notice of. 
 
 " The natives," he makes his hero say, " are considerable 
 proud of him, and if you want to make an impartial deal 
 to tie the Nova Scotians to you forever to make your own 
 name descend to posterity with honour, and to prevent 
 the inhabitants from ever thinking of Yankee connexion 
 (mind that hint, say a good deal about that, for it's a tender 
 point that, adjoining of our union, and fear is plaguy sight 
 stronger than love any time) you'll jist sarve him as you 
 sarved Earl Mulgrave (though his writins ain't to be com- 
 pared to the Clockmaker, no more than chalk is to cheese), 
 you give him the governorship of Jamaica and arterwards 
 of Ireland. John Russell's writins got him the berth of 
 leader in the House of Commons. Well, Francis Head, 
 for his writins you made him Governor of Canada, and 
 Walter Scott you made a baronet of, and Bulwer you did 
 for too, and a great many others you have got the other 
 side of the water you sarved the same way. Now, minister, 
 fair play is a jewel, says you : if you can reward your writers 
 to home with governorships and baronetcies and all sorts o' 
 snug things, let's have a taste o' the good things this side o' 
 the water too. You needn't be afraid o' bein too often 
 troubled that way by authors from this country (it will make 
 him larf that, and there's many a true word said in joke), 
 but we've got a sweet tooth here as well as you have. Poor
 
 64 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 pickins in this country, and colonists are as hungry as hawks. 
 The Yankees made Washington Irvin a minister plenipo, to 
 honour him ; and Blackwood, last November, in his maga- 
 zine, says that are Yankee's books ain't fit to be named in 
 the same day with the Clockmaker that they're nothin 
 but Jeremiads. So, minister, says you, jist tip a stave to 
 the Governor of Nova Scotia, order him to inquire out 
 the Author, and to tell that man, that distinguished man, 
 that Her Majesty delights to reward merit and honour 
 talent, and that if he will come home, she'll make a man 
 of him for ever, for the sake of her royal father, who lived 
 so long among the Blue-noses, who can't forget him very 
 
 soon." 
 
 Haliburton duly went to England, was elected member of 
 Parliament for Launceston, and, had he lived long enough, 
 would have seen his son, who died the other day, Under- 
 secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and Lord Hali- 
 burton. Sam Slick's author himself died in 1865 in his 
 seventieth year. 
 
 But we must take leave of Windsor, which was formerly 
 the prosperous Acadian village of Pisiquid (" Junction of 
 the Waters ") long before the expulsion of 1755. Fort 
 Edward here played a prominent part in all the internecine 
 struggles of the period. 
 
 I have alluded above to the existing remains of Fort 
 Edward. Standing on the disused battlements one's 
 glance sweeps across the waters it commands to Avonport 
 on the opposite shore. But I write " waters " can I now 
 speak of the waters of the Avon ? For, lo ! the tide has 
 fallen and there is now but a mighty waste of red, red mud
 
 THE FUNDY TIDES 65 
 
 " an ugly rent in the land," where but two hours or so ago 
 a teeming river flowed a spectacle to remind us that we are 
 now in the land of the " fluvial bore," and are watching 
 the action of the far-famed double tides of the Bay of 
 Fundy.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 GRAND PRE AND EVANGELINE 
 
 ONE of the pleasantest features of New Scotland is the 
 number and variety of its wild-flowers. Outside the dwell- 
 ings in " the Valley " one's eye constantly met with and 
 was refreshed by the sight of the white rose. The woods 
 are full of violets. The ponds and marshes reek with 
 perfume and colour. I shall never forget the advent at 
 each station on the line of half-a-dozen vociferous urchins 
 bearing bunches of long-stemmed water lilies. " Pond 
 lilies fresh picked pond lilies. Fifteen cents a bunch ! " 
 Behind this youth came another, at an interval of five paces. 
 " Beautiful fresh pond lilies. Ten cents a bunch." And 
 still another. " Pond lilies, five cents a bunch." The 
 train was about to move. " All aboard ! " shouted the 
 conductor. The flower merchants showed a sudden parity 
 and unanimity in their demands. " Pond lilies five a 
 bunch," they cried in chorus. Then, as the train began 
 to move, one small boy, rather pale and bright-eyed, looking 
 as if his chief and favourite nutriment were chewing-gum, 1 
 
 1 Of this delectable composition, one of those blessings which, like the 
 phonograph and the sky-scraper, the world owes to America, the variety now 
 most in vogue is called, for some mysterious reason known to its maker 
 " chiclets." A waiter at the Halifax Hotel informed me that an English 
 lady had ordered a pair of " chiclets " broiled for luncheon, under the 
 impression that it was the poultry par excellence of the country, like Mary- 
 land squab or reed birds.
 
 LILIES AND MAYFLOWERS 67 
 
 looked up into my face, extended his scented wares under 
 my very nose, and blurted out breathlessly : " Here, take 
 'em, mister. Beautiful and fresh. Two bunches for five ! " 
 
 I tossed him a coin, but my journey was long, the cars 
 were crowded, and the dank and dripping lilies would 
 have been an embarrassment ; so I left them in his hands. 
 But they were very beautiful ; and there is no scent in all 
 the world for me save the scent of lilac so pregnant 
 with charm, so redolent of poetry unwritten. 
 
 But the water-lily is not the flower of the Province. 
 That is the sweet scented, rich-hued trailing arbutus the 
 far-famed Mayflower, so rare in other parts of Canada, 
 here so plentiful that it has become the emblem of New 
 Scotland, from which is derived the poetic and significant 
 motto of the Province : " We bloom amid the snows." 
 No flower is so popular. One commonly meets with large 
 parties of young people in the woods, in quest of the May- 
 flower ; they are worn in corsage and button-hole, or 
 carried as a bouquet in the hand by shoppers and pedestrians. 
 The country people, Acadians, Indians, and Negroes, 
 gather them into little bunches and bring them to market, 
 or hawk them about the capital. So that, while it is in 
 season, it is all-pervasive in drawing-room, parlour window, 
 and office. So jealous are the Nova Scotians of their prior 
 rights in this flower that a decade since, impelled by the 
 claims of the Massachusetts folk, who seem somehow to 
 have confounded the blossom with the name of that truly 
 Leviathan ship the Mayflower, which bore thither the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, that they passed in legislature " An Act 
 respecting the Floral Emblem of Nova Scotia. Edward,
 
 68 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Sect, i, cap. x.," which duly sets forth their priority for 
 all future generations. 
 
 Speaking of the vessel of the Pilgrim Fathers, a gentle- 
 man at Liverpool, who showed me a piece of her timbers, 
 a cherished heirloom in the family, said : 
 
 " There never was a ship like the Mayflower, or an 
 instance which so shows the untrustworthiness of contem- 
 porary testimony. We know her now to have been one of 
 the marine wonders of the seventeenth century, far larger 
 than the Lusitania or the Mauretania, or any modern ship. 
 To find her equal we must go back to Noah's Ark, unless, 
 indeed, the Royal George, which survives to-day in the 
 form of at least a million chairs, tables, wardrobes, and 
 settees, were larger. The mere fact that she carried over 
 a thousand families, including many of Irish and German 
 origin, is a proof of her dimensions ! " 
 
 Westward from Windsor, on the edge of the Basin of 
 Minas, lies the great marsh meadow Grand Pre" a district 
 over which the genius of a poet has thrown a film of 
 magic, making it, even at noonday, a region of perpetual 
 twilight. It is strange to think that in Haliburton's day, 
 Grand Pr6, unheard of as a village, was merely the Grand 
 Prairie situated in Horton township, and that Evangeline 
 had never been heard of. Crossing the Avon, one is con- 
 fronted with a range of hills called the Horton Mountains. 
 The view from the roadway on the summit is unmatched 
 in Nova Scotia. It includes four counties, including the 
 thousands of acres of marsh meadow reclaimed by the 
 Acadians. Before one's eyes stretch the verdant and 
 populous vales of the Gaspereaux and Cornwallis, with
 
 BLOMIDON'S BLUE CREST 69 
 
 their wooded groves and tilled fields : the waters of five 
 rivers may be seen flowing into the basin. Travellers are 
 fond of comparing it to the valley of the Dee, near Aberdeen, 
 but that view lacks the wondrous Cape Blomidon, a majestic 
 promontory 670 feet high, which forms the abrupt eastern 
 termination of the North Mountain chain. 
 
 Where Blomidon's blue crest looks down upon the valley land. 
 
 How many poets have seen and sung of Blomidon and 
 Grand Pre" ? But one may see with the eye of the mind 
 and with the eye of the body, and the best description of 
 the district is still that of the poet who himself never set 
 foot in Acadia. 
 
 " Vast meadows stretched to the eastward, 
 
 Giving the village its name and pasture to flocks without number ; 
 Dikes that the hands of the farmers had raised with labour incessant, 
 Shut out the turbulent waves ; but at stated seasons the flood-gates 
 Opened and welcomed the sea, to wander at will o'er the meadows. 
 West and South there were fields of flax and orchards and corn-fields, 
 Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain ; and away to the northward 
 Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains 
 Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic 
 Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended." 
 
 Do you remember the visitor to Abbotsford, who, 
 remembering the beautiful lines 
 
 " He who would see fair Melrose aright, 
 Must visit it by the pale moonlight ; " 
 inquired : 
 
 " Did you often visit it by moonlight, Sir Walter ? " 
 " Alas, never ! " confessed the poet. 
 Emerson says somewhere that we write by aspiration and 
 antagonism, as well as from experience, and the one writing
 
 70 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 may be as true as the other. Critical persons there may 
 be, who seize upon passages in " Evangeline " as contrary 
 to " facts." Personally, I found few discrepancies between 
 Longfellow and Baedeker. 
 
 Strikingly in evidence is the great increase in the number 
 of tourists to the land of Evangeline. It is one of the 
 wonders of literature, certainly without parallel on this 
 side of the Atlantic, how Longfellow's hexameters have 
 fenced in this Acadian valley, and even peopled it with 
 poetic ghosts. Thither in their thousands come the living 
 twentieth-century flesh-and-blood to pay their tribute to 
 the genius loci. I came across them lingering by Evange- 
 line's Well, and gazing sentimentally upon the spot where 
 stood the forge of Basil. But they are, almost without 
 exception, New England, not Old England pilgrims. 
 
 On the crest of the highroad stands the white-painted 
 old chapel of the Scottish Covenanters, the high pulpit 
 and the old-fashioned pews within, and no barer now than 
 when the voice of the stern-faced preacher rang out his 
 exhortations and his remonstrances against the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil, to the meek self-denying flock in whose 
 bosoms the influence of the world, the flesh, and the devil, 
 was fleeting, remote, and exiguous indeed ! These Scots 
 were the successors by one remove, of the banished Acadians, 
 and to them this land of Grand Pr6 must have been Canaan, 
 a land flowing with milk and honey ; for owing to its 
 sheltered situation and the marshes and many silt-conveying 
 rivers, the soil is very fertile. 
 
 Along the road my driver urged his spirited mare. 
 We turned presently sharp to the left, through a quaint stone
 
 THE OLD JUDGE 71 
 
 gateway, with an appearance of such antiquity as if it 
 might be coeval with the Round Tower of Newport, and 
 through an avenue of apple-trees, which developed into 
 a thickly planted orchard, so thick that the trees might 
 almost have been an army, close-ranked for action (qucere : 
 a Pomeranian army ? ), and then winding in and out 
 beneath the golden fruit, a house bursts on the view, a 
 house of rambling pattern, many-winged and gabled, 
 covered with flaming creeper ; and in this house I passed 
 several delightful days. Under that roof I listened to the 
 pleasing gossip and animated reminiscence of an old judge 
 who knew New Scotland well from Cape North to Cape 
 Sable ; who had for nigh fifty years travelled on circuit by 
 good roads and bad, populous and lonely, by night and day, 
 in summer and winter ; who knew the people, especially 
 the farmers, as Haliburton knew them ; and who had many 
 tales to tell of their customs and their manners, their hopes 
 and their disappointments, their diversions, schemes, and 
 oddities. There was in all this flow of talk no narrowness 
 of vision no pettiness ; but much aspiration towards the 
 broader, more generous point of view, much humour, much 
 courtesy. And as I sat at dinner sipping, not cider, not 
 tea, not " fire-water and bubbles," but bumpers of cham- 
 pagne of noble vintage, 1 listening to the hale old judge, 
 
 1 I fancy this champagne was some of that carried by a French ship 
 bound for St. Pierre, which was wrecked off a prohibition village on the 
 south-east coast. The ship was making a return voyage loaded chiefly 
 with French wines. As case after case was brought ashore the inhabitants 
 looked blank. Every sturdy teetotaller suspected his neighbour, and nobody 
 felt quite easy in his mind until an enterprising Yankee patent-medicine 
 pedlar had carted away the whole stock, and Satan, speaking with a strong 
 Rheims and Epernay accent, was placed at defiance.
 
 72 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Lowell's words came to me, and I thought " The soil out 
 of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, 
 good to live on, good to die for, and be buried in." I 
 thought of that often in New Scotland when I met some 
 of her sons, and marked their characters and noted their 
 talk men of dignity, and ripeness, and gentleness, and 
 kindliness, such men as my host, the old judge, of the 
 present Chief Justice of the Province, of Sir Charles Tupper, 
 still with us, of amiable Sir Malachy, of Judge S., and of 
 many more. Of many, many more. 
 
 " The soil out of which such men as he are made is 
 good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for, and be 
 buried in." O ye in England at the heart of the Empire- 
 deem not all the culture, all the innate courtesy and gentle- 
 ness of manhood and womanhood is within the confines of 
 your own little island, reckoning the folk overseas as all 
 crude, and brusque, and unpolished, because of the examples 
 that come out of the rough and strenuous West. There are 
 thousands Colonial-born, as were their fathers and grand- 
 fathers before them who do not come back and sit at 
 the Imperial Mother's knee, who may not be seen careering 
 up and down Regent Street, or imbibing strange beverages 
 at the Hotel Cecil, who are the true sons of the Old Land, 
 and better represent the qualities which have made her 
 great than all the loud shouters from Toronto, the hustlers 
 of Winnipeg, and the boosters of Vancouver. These others 
 are of the type of men which make Canadian soil good to 
 be born on who carry on the tradition of the loyal, self- 
 denying, idealistic spirit in which British Canada was 
 founded ; and I thank God they are not yet extinct.
 
 AT "ST. EULALIE" 73 
 
 All this time I am forgetting my hostess, whose sweet 
 and gracious presence is often in my thoughts, a descendant 
 of one of the earliest pioneers, herself the daughter of a 
 judge, who has given six stalwart sons to the Province and 
 the Empire, one to the army, one to the Civil Service, 
 two to medicine, another to science, scattered thousands 
 of miles apart the true breed of British mother who is, 
 after all, Britain's greatest glory. 
 
 Readers of Longfellow's poems will not question the 
 appropriateness with which this house has been named. 
 It is " St. Eulalie." In the very heart of the old Acadian 
 settlement it stands. A tablet within the porch states : 
 
 " Here stood the village of Melanc.cn, where, on the night 
 of de Villiers memorable arrival in 1747, was celebrated an 
 Acadian wedding attended by the villagers from Grand Pre. 
 
 " After being here warmed by huge fires and regaled with 
 cakes and cider, the French and Indians marched through 
 blinding snows under the guidance of returning guests, who 
 disclosed at Grand Pre* the several houses in which the British 
 slept. 
 
 "Afterwards de Villiers, wounded in the attack, caused 
 himself to be carried back for treatment by the surgeon here 
 encamped." 
 
 All the walks and drives hereabout are full of the charm 
 of scenery of the magic of historic association. On a 
 hummock by the river I came across a tall tree, upon which 
 was fixed the following inscription : " Near this spot 
 Coulon de Villiers with about 20 French officers and 400 
 Canadians and Indians on the night of loth Feb. 1747, 
 from Beausejour, crossed the river in a snowstorm to attack 
 Colonel Noble with a force of 500 New Englanders at 
 Grand PreV'
 
 74 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 The expulsion of the Acadians is perhaps the most 
 striking and pathetic passage in New Scotland's history. 
 The British authorities could not treat all these thousands 
 of people as rebels, for the great majority of them had not 
 fought against them at Beausejour and elsewhere, but had 
 sulked quietly in their villages. But the long patience of 
 the Provincial Government was exhausted. Repeatedly 
 Governor Lawrence uged them to take the oath, repeatedly 
 and stubbornly they refused. 
 
 Then and not till then did the decree of exile go forth. 
 Ignorant of the trades and callings by which they could 
 earn a livelihood in those countries, the Acadians could not 
 be shipped to France or England. Colonists they were, 
 and the sons of colonists, suited only for a colonial life, 
 and on banishment they could only be distributed in 
 batches amongst the English colonies along the Pacific 
 coast. 
 
 Many hearts, even amongst the soldiers, warmly corn- 
 passioned the fate of the unhappy Acadians. Those who 
 had taken the oath were safe in their homesteads. A 
 number fled into the forest. As for the rest the military 
 officers were given their instructions. At Beausejour 
 400 men were seized, and without warning the people, 
 Colonel Winslow marched rapidly to Grand Pr6. He 
 summoned the men of the village to meet him in the 
 chapel, and there read to them the decree of banishment. 
 In vain they tried to escape ; the doors were shut and 
 guarded by English soldiers. The people of village after 
 village were seized, until 6000 souls had been gathered 
 together. For a long time they had to wait for transports
 
 THE ACADIAN EXPULSION 75 
 
 to bear them away. Many had forcibly to be conducted 
 on board the ships. Old and young men, women, and 
 children, were marched to the beach. A few members of 
 the same family became separated from each other, never to 
 meet again. But the soldiers strove their best to perform 
 their painful duty as humanely as possible, and no un- 
 necessary harshness marked their operations. 
 
 From Minas, Chignecto, and Annapolis, ship after ship 
 bore their weeping burdens southward. Many, long years 
 afterwards, returned again to Acadia, where, when Quebec 
 and the French flag had fallen, they were no longer a 
 danger to the Government. Such of the Acadians as 
 reached Quebec were treated with inhumanity by the French 
 officials there, and nearly perished of famine. It is said 
 that they were reduced to four ounces of bread per day, 
 and sought in the gutters of Quebec to appease their hunger. 
 Smallpox broke out amongst them, and many entire families 
 were destroyed. Such, alas ! was the fate of those un- 
 happy beings " whose attachment to their mother country 
 was only equalled by her indifference." 
 
 The expulsion of the Acadians may seem to us a cruel 
 act, but it was forced upon the English by the hardest 
 necessity the necessity of self-protection, 1 and in spite of 
 all that has since been written to the contrary, no impartial 
 student of history can perceive in what other way than 
 
 1 I am aware that a hysterical gentleman of the name of Richard, a 
 descendant of one of the Acadian families, has sought in two octavo volumes 
 to prove otherwise. I have perused his volumes attacking Mr. Parkman 
 with a freedom of invective and wealth of epithet that goes far to damage 
 his case, with no other emotion than that of renewed pity for the fate of 
 the Acadians and a renewed certainty of its absolute necessity.
 
 76 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 the deportation of these irreconcilables could the peace 
 of New Scotland have been assured, a peace which has 
 lasted to this day. 
 
 Of Grand Pr6 it has been said that it boasts a threefold 
 attraction beauty, fertility, and sentiment. Originally 
 Grand Pr6 was a long straggling Acadian settlement be- 
 ginning at what is now the Grand Pr6 railway station, 
 three miles east of Wolfeville, with Horton Landing one 
 mile away. The salient features of the landscape to-day 
 is, and the older portions of those dikes are, relics of the 
 Acadian occupation. 
 
 A group of old willows in one part of this great meadow, 
 undoubtedly planted by the original French inhabitants, 
 the well supposed to have been part of the village's water- 
 supply, and the reputed sites of the forge of Basil the 
 blacksmith and of the house of Father Felicien, are duly 
 shown to the visitor. I have already mentioned the place 
 where a body of New England troops were massacred by 
 the French and their Indian allies nine years before the 
 expulsion. 
 
 A recent discovery at Grand Pr revealed portions of 
 the foundations of the Acadian Church of St. Charles. Most 
 of the stone had been removed, either to be used in other 
 foundations built by the English settlers after the deporta- 
 tion, or had been removed to enable the owner to plough 
 over the church site, but enough has been exposed to 
 determine the size of the church. 
 
 Excavations have brought to light also the remains of 
 the fireplace and foundations of the chimney built by 
 the soldiers who were quartered in the church. After the
 
 WOLFEVILLE 77 
 
 first removal 600 Acadians had to be kept prisoners till 
 ships arrived from Boston to take them away. All Minas 
 was destroyed, save the few houses in Grand Pre needed 
 to shelter these 600 people. Wherefore the soldiers made 
 the church comfortable for themselves during the early 
 winter, till they finally departed. 
 
 I had an interesting chat with a descendant of the 
 original Acadians, one Herbin by name, an intelligent 
 and enterprising spirit, who has recently set up business 
 in the Grand Pre district, and seems to prosper at the hands 
 of the numerous tourists to the shrine of Evangeline. 
 
 Each morning I arose and gazed across the Basin of 
 Minas at Blomidon, as it lay like some sleeping lion. And 
 the sun shone, and the summer wind rippled the tall marsh 
 grass as if it were pale green sea. And far beyond the 
 white sails of ships stole in and out of the Basin, bending 
 and veering like seagulls. And once out from an orchard 
 a farmer's boy sang a selection from " Parsifal " (" Learnt 
 it off a gramaphone. Learnt a lot o' operatic songs that 
 way ") ; and my heart, too, sang, and I was glad I had 
 come to Grand Pre". 
 
 From Grand Pr6 I went on to Wolfeville, a pleasant 
 little town which, for some odd reason, is spelt " Wolfville." 
 When the " e," which allies its history with the name of 
 the famous young general, was elided, I cannot pre- 
 cisely state, but the town was Wolfeville on the old maps 
 and in Haliburton's account of the Province. 1 Here is 
 
 1 Amongst the pioneers was a family of Wolfe, or De Wolfe, of Irish 
 origin, and distantly connected with the general's family. Descendants of 
 these still survive.
 
 78 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 situated the Acadia College, a flourishing Baptist institution, 
 which has recently enjoyed some of Mr. Rockefeller's 
 favour, and which has long been an eminent seat of learning 
 in this part of the Province. But Wolfeville's chief asset 
 is the fact of its being a convenient centre for American 
 tourists visiting the " Evangeline District." 
 
 Wolfeville's growth has been steady and uninterrupted 
 since the old coaching days of three quarters of a century 
 ago, when a few houses on one street composed the settle- 
 ment. From this hamlet it grew into a village, and in 1893 
 into a town. 
 
 The Acadia College and its allied institutions have from 
 the first been the chief asset of the place. Adding to 
 its attractiveness as a residential centre, they also bring 
 annually about 400 young men and women here, and pay 
 out to teachers about $30,000 a year. And besides the 
 educational, the natural advantages of Wolfeville are con- 
 siderable. It is the commercial centre of a fertile and 
 prosperous region where orcharding and dairying is 
 remunerative, and the farming population increasingly 
 prosperous. 
 
 With railway facilities there is excellent water com- 
 munication for domestic and foreign trade, and a daily 
 steamboat service to Kingsport and Parrsboro for nine 
 months in the year, which makes Wolfeville a promising 
 distributing centre. 
 
 This part of Nova Scotia as well as Cape Breton, struck 
 me as eminently adapted to sheep-raising. I am told that 
 where the same care is bestowed upon these animals as is 
 bestowed in other countries, excellent results are attained
 
 THE SCENE OF THE GRAND PRE RAID OF 1754.
 
 SHEEP VERSUS DOGS 79 
 
 on Nova Scotia farms. There should be a flock of sheep 
 on, at least, three-quarters of the farms, and the only 
 obstacle which has hitherto militated against success in the 
 parts of the Province best fitted by nature for sheep-raising, 
 has been their destruction by dogs. Until this is rectified 
 by legislation, and I have the Government's assurance 
 that this will be attempted it is useless for any farmer 
 to engage in the pursuit. Repeatedly throughout Nova 
 Scotia I have heard stories of canine depredations. The 
 worst was a case at Yarmouth, where a young Englishman 
 had his whole flock of prize sheep destroyed by dogs. When 
 he made complaint to the owner of a ferocious cur demand- 
 ing that the animal be shot, or chained, or muzzled, it's 
 owner retorted, " Why should I get rid of my dog ? What 
 business have you to keep sheep ? " A rigorously enforced 
 tethering or muzzling order for sheep-worrying dogs would 
 meet the difficulty. 
 
 Whether Kentville will continue to be the headquarters 
 of the railway rests with the Canadian Pacific authorities. 
 Should that corporation see fit to remove the workshops 
 and offices from the town, it will be a blow not wholly 
 unexpected. 
 
 However, the Canadian Pacific always exploits the 
 country its line traverses, so what is the gain of the sur- 
 rounding district would in time benefit the town. 
 
 Kentville ought, I think, not to bestow all its eggs in one 
 basket. Owing to the partial failure of one recent year's 
 apple crop, this town being in the heart of the fruit district 
 and largely dependent on apples, a good deal less pros- 
 perity was experienced in consequence.
 
 8o NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 From Kentville I motored through the Cornwallis 
 Valley, taking in a number of villages, and seeing on all 
 sides evidences of prosperity, especially in Waterville and 
 Berwick. Besides material prosperity, and even moral, and 
 intellectual, and aesthetic, there is another kind of prosperity 
 that of years ; and a gentleman who came forward to 
 my car and shook hands with me, vigorously enjoyed this 
 kind of prosperity. He was a centenarian. He had long 
 ago undertaken a race with Father Time, and that inexor- 
 able personage had not yet succeeded in running my friend 
 to Mother Earth. Let us hope his race will not be run 
 this many a day ; for the absurd brevity of our lives is a 
 great and growing grievance with us all.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 ANNAPOLIS ROYAL AND DIGBY 
 
 THE use of oxen for draught purposes is characteristic of 
 Nova Scotia. It is practised by French, Germans, and 
 English, and is so common nowhere in Canada. Along 
 the country roads one sees the oxen coming along at a 
 leisurely pace, swishing their tails ; their red hides, touched 
 by the summer sun, blending harmoniously with the land- 
 scape ; and casting long shadows on the white road. Yes, 
 the ox is the beast of burden up and down the Province. 
 His harness has an unfamiliar look. Of arched yoke and 
 boles he is often ignorant, and the comfort of collar and 
 harness would lull him to slumber. Just behind his ears he 
 carries his yoke, strapped to the base of his horns and 
 around his forehead. He is shod with iron shoes like a 
 horse, and is at once the admiration and the derision of 
 the Yankee, who would not for a moment tolerate such 
 slow progress. He calls the ox the " Blue-nose auto- 
 mobile." I have heard the patient quadruped spoken of 
 as one of the four characteristics of the Province apples, 
 oxen, cold nights, and pessimism. For the latter I should 
 now substitute optimism. Besides, the Blue-nose never was 
 pessimistic. At most he was (as you may see by reading 
 " Sam Slick ") merely apathetic unresponsive, or as other 
 observers have declared, serene. 
 
 F
 
 82 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Here is the eastern gateway of one of the most celebrated 
 apple-growing districts of the world. Long before Tas- 
 mania, South Australia, and California began to grow 
 apples, it was the orchard of the Empire. Following the 
 eastern course of the river between North Mountain (which 
 shelters the valley from the Bay of Fundy) and South 
 Mountain, there stretch seventy-five miles of fruit lands 
 and enchanting scenery. Here is grown the luscious apple 
 which is found in all the world's great markets. The 
 apple-tree is the dominant note in the swelling landscape, 
 and in early June the whole valley is a scene and scent of 
 sheer beauty, comparable only to the orange-groves of 
 Seville or Santa Clara. This apple is not, of course, 
 indigenous ; but none can tell who brought the first 
 pommier from Normandy. Perchance it was Lescarbot 
 himself. At all events orchards were flourishing here in 
 abundance long before the expulsion of the Acadians. Ere 
 the building of the Dominion and Atlantic Railway 
 (now taken over by the Canadian Pacific), the apple 
 production of " the Valley " was some twenty thousand 
 barrels annually. Within a few years the output had 
 grown to half a million. In 1911 it reached 1,750,000 
 barrels. 
 
 Last year the apple-growers received a serious check. 
 It was not a good apple year. There was the weather for 
 one thing, not merely of this but of the season of 1909, 
 when the embryo bud was formed. A more serious and 
 more permanent drawback I found to be the want of 
 capital. They complain here that too much British capital 
 is going west. Everything conducted on a large scale needs 
 capital, and the whole situation was clearly explained to
 
 THE APPLE INDUSTRY 83 
 
 me by a leading orchardist in the Valley, who is a man 
 of education and substance, and the argument was echoed 
 by others who follow the industry. 
 
 " There is plenty of money in apples," said he, " and 
 we should be producing not one but thirty millions of 
 barrels a year. The trouble is and there is no need to 
 disguise it that while a number of orchards which have 
 constantly been well cultivated, fertilised, and sprayed, 
 always yield the usual crops of the finest fruit, the great 
 bulk of our trees are partially starved and neglected. Far 
 more trees have been grown than can be brought into 
 fruit-bearing with the present skill, labour, and capital." 
 
 To plant and grow trees is a simple and not expensive 
 operation. With such soil as this and proper attention, 
 little or no fertiliser is needed. But the continued pro- 
 duction and marketing of the fruit involves much more 
 skill, labour, and capital. Owners of orchards having the 
 means of fertilising 100 to 150 trees, soon found it a difficult 
 matter to grapple with an orchard area of 500 to 1000 
 trees. Such attempt often resulted in less actual returns 
 than the small orchards had produced. It is simply a 
 question of want of capital, as it would be in lumbering, 
 mining, or fishing. 
 
 As a result a very considerable proportion of the apples 
 now produced are discarded as unfit for packing. 
 
 " It is out of the question," continued my informant, 
 " for us to do business with a mere fraction of the capital 
 necessary to produce a proper quantity of the wonderful 
 crops of fruit which twenty or thirty years ago excited the 
 admiration of European pomologists, and gave a world- wide 
 fame to this district."
 
 84 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 In other words, the orchards are vastly greater, but 
 too much of it is with wood, not fruit. However, be it 
 said, that the number of trees now capable of bearing are 
 healthy and vigorous. While orchards in other lands bear 
 earlier, the trees are far less healthy and sooner decay. 
 The Annapolis Valley trees reach a great size, and I have 
 been shown many bearing fruit in profusion at the age 
 of 100 and even 150 years. Labour and capital are the 
 great need of the district. 
 
 Even when the yield of the fine fruit is large, there 
 appears a disquieting drawback. Many were the complaints 
 I heard of the greed of the carrier by steamer or railway, 
 or of the middlemen, as if these were in a conspiracy to 
 squeeze the last cent out of this industry. For apples for 
 which the Covent Garden dealer receives 303. a barrel, 
 the grower has often to be content with 55. I was told 
 of one middleman who often gains 50,000 dollars in a 
 season ; while the last season three middlemen made an 
 average profit of 40,000 dollars each. 
 
 I found here, as elsewhere in Nova Scotia, the exist- 
 ence of a deep-seated grievance not yet voiced abroad as 
 it may be. Bitterly does the farmer and the fruit-grower 
 complain of that tide of population promoted out of the 
 Canadian public treasury, which has been not only sweeping 
 in its current tens of thousands from the old country, 
 but the many stalwart youth from the Maritime Provinces 
 as well, whose strength is so much needed at home. The 
 millions spent in Western development are as a thorn in 
 the side of the Nova Scotian. Hence, therefore, the 
 warmth of the welcome he extends to the Canadian Pacific
 
 CAPITAL AND PROSPERITY 85 
 
 Railway, which this year will formally invade " the Valley." 
 Yet the action of this great corporation is rather merely 
 a symptom than any cause of that awakening prosperity 
 and general accession of enterprise which I noted throughout 
 this part of the Province. 
 
 With regard to fruit, it cannot be pointed out too often 
 that Nova Scotia is nearer the British and other European 
 markets than any other part of the continent. Some of 
 the best fruit growing sections of Canada and the United 
 States are near the Pacific Coast, and the eight or ten 
 days necessary to bring their fruit to Atlantic ports, besides 
 the extra freight charges, must certainly serve as a serious 
 drawback to those States and Provinces from which New 
 Scotland is free. 
 
 But not merely British but a great deal of Nova Scotia 
 capital is invested elsewhere particularly in the Far West. 
 The East is always financing the West. They tell a story 
 of a Kansas man on a visit to the East, who looked with 
 characteristic scorn on its old-fashioned methods and re- 
 marked to a New England farmer : " You are surely foolish 
 to stay here where you have to do your spring ploughing 
 with a pickaxe and your planting with a shotgun. Why 
 don't you come out West ? Not a stump, not a stone in 
 sight ; soil ten feet deep ; crops of one year make you 
 rich." The New Englander listened with evident interest 
 and then said : " I am holding six mortgages on Kansas 
 farms, and if you fellows will just keep it up, and pay 
 the interest, I will try and pull along very well where I 
 am." 
 
 Just how many mortgages on farms, how many title-
 
 86 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 deeds to fertile sections of land or valuable city lots in the 
 rapidly developing West are to-day in Nova Scotian hands, 
 and are a source of wealth to the ancient Province by 
 the sea, it would be difficult to compute. 
 
 Not so long ago when the citizens of Winnipeg began 
 to negotiate for land on a bend in the Red River in the 
 immediate environs of the city for the purpose of a public 
 park, it was found to be already in the possession of enter- 
 prising Nova Scotian capitalists. There are other instances. 
 
 In the Annapolis Valley the advent of the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway is the great abiding topic of interest. 
 Reports of its plans and movements are canvassed by all 
 classes and all interests. It is said that the railway has 
 decided to build four new steamers for a fast direct steamship 
 service between Nova Scotia and Boston and New York. 
 These vessels will be larger and faster than any at present 
 engaged in the American or Canadian Atlantic Coast 
 steamship traffic. This is one of the important develop- 
 ments that will follow the taking over of the Dominion 
 Atlantic. These steamers, which will be able to make 
 over 20 knots an hour, are to run between Yarmouth and 
 Boston, Halifax and New York, and Halifax and Boston. 
 There will also be a fast steamship service between Digby 
 and Boston, and across the Bay of Fundy between St. John 
 and Digby. The fleet of six steamers which the great 
 corporation will take over with the Dominion Atlantic 
 road will be placed on the subsidiary services. 
 
 The great corporation will probably build four big 
 hotels in Nova Scotia one at Yarmouth, one at Digby, 
 one at Halifax, and one at Chester, a branch line from

 
 ANNAPOLIS THE OLDEST GRAVE-YARD ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 ANNAPOLIS ROYAL THE HOME OF THOMAS CHANDLER HALI BURTON 
 ("SAM SLICK ").
 
 THE "CRADLE" OF CANADA 87 
 
 Windsor to Chester, only thirty miles, being contemplated 
 to bring Chester into the Canadian Pacific Railway system. 
 
 It seems to be taken for granted that the railway 
 authorities will make an organised effort to increase British 
 immigration to this Province. They recognise that more 
 population is needed, and they are going to do their part, 
 so we are told, to bring in the people, and this with their 
 publicity system ought not to be difficult. 
 
 One should not perhaps complain of the perpetual 
 insistence upon lands in the making, of the " possibilities " 
 of the virgin prairie, of the sun-kissed solitudes of the 
 Golden West. But this is the Golden East, the long-settled, 
 pleasant East, where the genius of history muses amidst 
 moss-grown battlements and ancient tombstones. This is 
 Canada the first Canada Acadia. Even Quebec yields 
 precedence to Annapolis Royal, the " cradle " of the 
 Canadian Dominion. 
 
 Rich indeed in historic and poetic association is Anna- 
 polis Royal. What romantic memories cluster about this 
 little town, superbly set at the head of Annapolis Basin ! 
 Save Quebec no spot on the entire Continent has a more 
 abiding interest. Three years before a white man's hut 
 had been built on the site of Quebec, a fort and village 
 were to be found at Port Royal. On the waters of this 
 basin was launched the first vessel built in North America ; 
 here, too, was the first mill fashioned. Also the problem 
 of Canadian agriculture was here solved by the successful 
 production of cereal and root crops. 
 
 Nor is this all. At old Port Royal was witnessed the 
 first conversion to Christianity ; here echoed the first notes
 
 88 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 of poetic song in Canada the chanson composed by 
 Lescarbot in honour of Champlain. And here flourished 
 the first social club in the western hemisphere. 
 
 So we are carried back to the very beginnings of both 
 French and British rule to the days of De Monts, 
 Champlain, and Poutrincourt. Founded in 1605, the 
 vicissitudes of the fort and town (renamed in Queen 
 Anne's honour) have been numerous enough to fill a portly 
 volume. 1 
 
 Port Royal once bade fair then to become a great 
 city and Acadia a populous province. I have already told 
 about Champlain and the " Order of a Good Time," about 
 Membertou and the hopes of the early French settlers. 
 In 1607 De Monts' charter was revoked by the King, 
 and his friends would support his scheme with no more 
 money. The Indians at Port Royal watched the French 
 depart with sadness, promising to look after the fort and 
 its belongings until the white men should return. 
 
 Champlain had chosen another field the lands far 
 inland on the St. Lawrence ; but Poutrincourt resolved, 
 after first dealing a blow at his enemies in France, to return 
 to take deep root in the fertile Acadian soil. 
 
 In the spring of 1613 the Jesuits who, in the meantime, 
 had through the influence of Madame De Guercheville got 
 rights in Acadia, despatched an expedition under a courtier 
 named La Saussaye, who, landed at Port Royal, took on 
 board two priests left there, and then sailed on and founded 
 a new colony at Mount Desert, on the coast of Maine. 
 
 All Acadia, as well as Canada, was given back to the 
 
 1 See Calnek and Savary's History of Annapolis.
 
 ENTER CHARNISAY 89 
 
 French by the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, and King 
 Louis and his Court were now inclined to abandon their 
 policy of indifference and resume the work of colonising. 
 In the spring of 1632 a nephew of Richelieu's, Captain 
 de Razilly, arrived in Acadia with a shipload of colonists, 
 including artisans, farmers, several Capuchin friars, and 
 some gentry. Amongst the latter were Nicholas Denys, 
 and an extraordinary person, Charles de Menou, Chevalier 
 de Charnisay, whom I commend as a really superb stage 
 villain. 
 
 Young De la Tour, who considered himself the rightful 
 lord of Acadia under De Monts' charter, 1 was naturally 
 jealous of Razilly, thinking the King ought to have appointed 
 him Governor, instead of giving him the mere lordship over 
 a limited territory. Even upon Razilly's death in the 
 following year, De la Tour's hopes were frustrated. Razilly 
 had ceded all his rights to Charnisay, his Deputy-Governor, 
 whose first act was to remove from La Heve to Port Royal, 
 where he built a new fort. 
 
 Now began the astonishing drama of Charnisay and 
 De la Tour. The latter believed it to be Charnisay's aim 
 to dispossess him of those rights which he had acquired 
 in Acadia by so much energy and sacrifice. The King 
 tried to settle the dispute by fixing the limits of Charnisay's 
 government at the New England frontiers on the one hand, 
 and at a line north from the Bay of Fundy on the other, 
 westward of this line to be De la Tour's province. Charni- 
 say's friends poisoned the King's mind by alleging that 
 De la Tour was a Huguenot in disguise, and orders were sent 
 
 1 Ante, p. 1 8.
 
 90 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 to his foe to arrest him and send him a prisoner to France. 
 The young commander strengthened Fort la Tour and 
 defied his enemy to do his worst. 
 
 Not until the spring of 1643 was the crafty Charnisay 
 ready to wreak vengeance on the " traitor," as he called 
 De la Tour. With the ships and 500 men Richelieu had 
 sent him, Charnisay led the assault. La Tour proved too 
 strong, and to starve La Tour into capitulation was begun 
 a close siege by sea and land. A long-expected ship, with 
 provisions, merchandise, and gunpowder for Fort la Tour, 
 was sighted off the coast, and De la Tour and his wife 
 managed in an open boat to gain the decks. 
 
 They sailed for Boston, where, although they dared 
 not give him direct assistance, the Puritan elders of 
 that new town had no objection to striking a bargain, 
 and at a good price permitted their visitor to hire four 
 stout ships and seventy men. Sailing back with this force, 
 De la Tour was able to make his enemy flee before him. 
 The siege of his own fort being raised, he followed the 
 foiled Charnisay to Port Royal, captured a shipload of 
 rich furs, and would have taken Charnisay himself and his 
 settlement, had it not been that the scruples of his Boston 
 allies led to the making of a false peace. There could be 
 no real peace between De la Tour and Charnisay. After 
 many adventures Marie De la Tour was left in charge of 
 their fort. Charnisay, constantly on the watch, fell upon 
 her, but her defence was so vigorous that but for the action 
 of a traitor he would never have taken it and her. He placed 
 a common halter round this brave woman's neck and forced 
 her to witness the cold-blooded murder of her garrison.
 
 A CHURCH BI-CENTENARY 91 
 
 She pined away and died three weeks later at Port Royal. 
 Her husband became for years a wanderer on the face of the 
 earth, until he learnt of the drowning of Charnisay, when 
 he returned and married the widow of his life-long foe. 
 This is only half the drama : but the rest can be read in the 
 history books. 
 
 Recently the good folk of Annapolis were very busy 
 over preparations for the celebration of the bi-centenary of 
 the Church of England in Canada. A shoal of bishops was 
 imminent amongst them the distinguished prelate who 
 signs himself " Arthur F. Londin." One prospective 
 hostess desired my opinion on the propriety of ensconcing 
 three bishops in one room so full to overflowing would the 
 old town be, and so limited the accommodation. Here was 
 a problem in episcopal nay, in doctrinal accommodation, 
 not without bearing upon High, Low, and Broad bishops 
 and their respective powers of bodily as well as spiritual 
 adjustment, a problem I could only hint at and evade. 
 
 All this Anglican jubilation was to signalise the fact 
 that a couple of centuries ago, with the English con- 
 quest, came the chaplain of the garrison to minister 
 to the English newcomers. Here the worthy cleric, a 
 certain Rev. John Harrison, of whom little is known, set 
 up his altar and celebrated Holy Communion in English 
 for the first time in the Province and in all the land destined 
 later to become the Canadian Dominion. Not that these 
 are the first anniversary fetes the town has witnessed. In 
 1905 Annapolis Royal recalled its tercentenary, when a 
 monument to De Monts was erected on a commanding 
 site within the grounds of the dismantled fortress. Few
 
 92 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 vestiges now remain of the old masonry, but the site is in 
 charge of Government, and is maintained in excellent con- 
 dition as a public park. 
 
 Digby has grown into a flourishing summer resort from 
 a fishing town which was famed far and near as the home 
 of the " Digby chicken," an article almost as famous as 
 Yarmouth bloater or Bombay duck. Some seventy years 
 ago Haliburton wrote in words often quoted : 
 
 " Digby is a charming little town. It is the Brighton 
 of Nova Scotia, the resort of the valetudinarians of New 
 Brunswick, who take refuge here from the unrelenting 
 fogs, hopeless sterility, and calcareous waters of St. John. 
 About as pretty a place this for business, said the Clock- 
 maker, as I know of in this country. Digby is the only 
 safe harbour from Blowmidown to Briar Island. Then there 
 is that everlasting long river runnin away up from the 
 wharfes here almost across to Minas Basin, bordered with 
 dikes and interval, and backed up by good upland. A 
 nice, dry, pleasant place for a town, with good water, good 
 air, and the best herrin fishery in America, but it wants 
 one thing to make it go ahead." " And, pray, what is 
 that ? " said I, " for it appears to me to have every natural 
 advantage that can be desired." " It wants to be made a 
 free port," said he. "They ought to send a delegate to 
 England about it ; but the fact is they don't understand 
 diplomacy here nor the English either. They haven't got 
 no talents that way." 
 
 Steamers now run between Boston and Digby, as well as 
 between Digby and St. John. 
 
 A favourite rendezvous for tourists is the mountain, from
 
 
 OFF THE PlKR Al DlC.liY. 
 
 Low TIDE AT YARMOUTH.
 
 DIGBY 93 
 
 which a good view of Annapolis Basin, extending away up 
 to Annapolis Royal, and taking in Bear and Goat Islands 
 and the Granville shore, is to be enjoyed. There are 
 many interesting drives hereabouts, one passing a camp of 
 Micmac Indians, who turn an honest penny by fashion- 
 ing fancy baskets for the tourists and posing for amateur 
 photographers. 
 
 The Shore Road winds for a couple of miles along the 
 edge of the Basin and the base of Ben Lomond towards 
 Digby Strait, otherwise known as " The Gut " or " The 
 Gap," the great natural wonder of the vicinity. It is a 
 break in the North Mountain range less than a mile in 
 width, and through it the tides of Fundy and the Annapolis 
 Basin rush with irresistible force. 
 
 " The Gut " is the dominating feature of Digby scenery, 
 and very popular with visitors. On the other and western 
 side of the town is Digby Neck, a length strip of land which 
 forms the seaward barrier of St. Mary's Bay. 
 
 Bear River is the scene of an annual cherry carnival. 
 It may be reached by sail-boat or steamer, the route lying 
 part of the way across Annapolis Basin. The village lies 
 four miles up the winding stream from the station, and is 
 an important lumber centre, but chiefly famous for its 
 cherries. This luscious fruit grows here in rich profusion, 
 and long ago suggested the great summer event in Bear 
 River, the annual cherry carnival, which is held in July. 
 On carnival day hundreds of tourists and natives visit the 
 pretty town to feast on the cherries and to witness a pro- 
 cession and aquatic sports. 
 
 The small but enterprising town of Weymouth boasts
 
 94 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 some shipyards and shipping. With its high river banks, its 
 attractive residences, and its surrounding forests, Weymouth 
 is a pretty place and popular with American tourists. 
 
 Sissibo Falls, some distance up the river, is one of the 
 scenic features of the locality. 
 
 People who have read Longfellow's " Evangeline " often 
 ask what became of the Acadians did they virtually 
 disappear after the expulsion ? Those of sympathetic 
 temperament as well as the historical student would doubt- 
 less be glad to know if it is really the case that 
 
 " Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic 
 Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile 
 Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom.'' 
 
 To such, therefore, I am glad to state that scattered 
 through the Maritime Provinces, Magdalen Islands, Gaspe, 
 St. Pierre and Miquelon, and Newfoundland, are close 
 upon 150,000 descendants of the expelled Acadians. By 
 far the most interesting Acadian settlement is that of Clare, 
 in the extreme south-west of Nova Scotia. Here in a 
 single continuous village, twelve miles long, dwells a primitive 
 people, some 10,000 all told ; wholly out of touch of the 
 railway, and only to be seen on foot or by motor. Many 
 travellers pass on the borders of this district without sus- 
 pecting its existence, only marvelling perhaps why the 
 railway line from Digby to Yarmouth describes such a 
 curve inland at this part. The reason is this : When the 
 railway was built the French priest in spiritual charge of 
 the Clare Acadians took alarm for his flock, and by supplica- 
 tions and threats managed to get the line diverted, so as 
 to cut off his parish between the railway and the sea. All
 
 THE HOME OF " EVANGELINE." 
 
 AT EVANGELINE'S WKI.L.
 
 CLARE ACADIANS 95 
 
 the traveller sees, therefore, from the car windows is a 
 stretch of untilled land and a succession of tree stumps. 
 Were he to descend and push on a few miles he would 
 come to the best road in the Province, hundreds of neat 
 dwellings at Meteghan, Salmon River, and Church Point, 
 and a cheerful, contented, ignorant people, living now as 
 they have lived for a century and a half on the south shore 
 of St. Mary's Bay. Here 
 
 " In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy, 
 Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun, 
 And by the fire repeat Evangeline's story." 
 
 This latter is no poetical fiction. The story of the 
 expulsion is really fresh in the hearts of all these peasants. 
 The Roman Catholic establishment is very strong here- 
 abouts, one of the largest churches in the Province being 
 here ; and they can also boast of a college and convent 
 which, I believe, as is the case with other Roman Catholic 
 institutions in the Province, is in receipt of funds from 
 France. 
 
 Here once dwelt a priest whose deeds and whose example 
 etill live amongst the French Acadians of Clare. I talked 
 with a man who well remembered the worthy Cure of 
 Montaignan. 
 
 " Born and educated in France," wrote Captain 
 Moorsom, " M. Segoigne emigrated from that country 
 when revolutionary suspicion threatened the lives of all 
 whose virtues were inimical to the views of the ruling 
 democrats, and for the last thirty years has devoted his 
 attention exclusively to the welfare of these children of 
 Acadia. Buried in this retreat from all the thoughts and
 
 96 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 habits of the polished world, he yet retains the urbanity 
 of the old French school ; or rather, I apprehend, possesses 
 that natural excellence of disposition which gives to urbanity 
 its intrinsic value. He is at once the priest, the lawyer, 
 and the judge of his people ; he has seen most of them rise 
 up to manhood around him, or accompany his own decline 
 in the vale of years ; the unvarying steadiness of his conduct 
 has gained equally their affection and respect ; to him, 
 therefore, it is that they apply in their mutual difficulties, 
 from him they look for judgment to decide their little 
 matters of dispute." 
 
 In French-speaking Canada one frequently comes across 
 the priest in this dignified, affectionate, paternal character. 
 Denied real fatherhood he consecrates his life to his spiritual 
 children ; and the virtues of such men constitute the real 
 strength of the Roman Catholic church in Canada, amongst 
 a simple folk to whose minds, absorbed in labour and 
 home life, doctrine and dialectics are as the scattering of 
 chaff on the sands of the sea.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 YARMOUTH AND SHIPBUILDING 
 
 AN odour of sanctity, permeating current speech and 
 manners, is characteristic of New Scotland. But religion is 
 less narrow, less austere, than in New England. One 
 familiar expression of the religious spirit is the grace 
 before meat. Of these anteprandial orisons the privi- 
 leged traveller, curious in such matters, might collect 
 some interesting examples in the course of his travels 
 through the Province, ranging from a long discourse, 
 which threatened to be interminable, which I heard 
 at Yarmouth, to a brief, almost ejaculatory, " Thank 
 God ! " from the lips of an old naval officer at Sydney. 
 Of the devoutness of the people there can be no ques- 
 tion. Upwards of eighty years ago a Scotsman, author 
 of Letters from Nova Scotia, asked a well-informed native : 
 " Which do you think the most numerous denomination 
 of Christians in Nova Scotia ? " " Oh," was the reply, 
 " the Presbyterians, then the Roman Catholics, then the 
 Baptists, then the Methodists, then the Episcopalians." 
 
 " Is the Baptist a numerous sect? " 
 
 " Yes, it is the most prosperous of all denominations. 
 A few years ago the Baptists were a small and com- 
 paratively uninfluential body of men. Their teachers 
 were ignorant of all knowledge except what their Bibles 
 
 97
 
 98 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 afforded, and their hearers were the poorest of our 
 peasantry. But by recent events they have received a most 
 important accession, not only of numbers, but also of wealth, 
 talent, and education ; and I will stake my sagacity upon 
 the prophecy that, in a few years, the Baptist Church will 
 be predominant in Nova Scotia. The Church of Eng- 
 land may be established nominally, but the Baptist one 
 will be predominant." 
 
 That was in 1828. Let us see what has happened. 
 According to the last census, as many as 1355 churches 
 were found to be in this one Province, the proportions 
 being as follow: 351 belonging to the Baptists, 270 to 
 the Presbyterians, 254 to the Methodists, 198 to the 
 Anglicans, and 156 to the Roman Catholics. The total 
 seating capacity of these 1355 churches was 409,738, 
 the Presbyterians heading the list with 100,337, the 
 Baptists coming next with 91,290, then the Methodists 
 with 71,731, the Roman Catholics with 70,974, and the 
 Anglicans last with 47,426. The Congregationalists had 
 only 1 6 churches, with a seating capacity of 4470. 
 Among the various churches were 1005 Sunday Schools, 
 with 66,680 scholars and 7750 teachers. In a general 
 classification the people divided themselves as follows : 
 129,578 Roman Catholics, 106,381 Presbyterians, 83,233 
 Baptists, 66,107 Anglicans, 57,490 Methodists, 6572 
 Lutherans, 2938 Congregationalists, 1494 Adventists, 
 1412 Disciples, and 437 Jews, with several smaller groups 
 of other denominations, leaving only 543 persons who 
 did not return themselves as belonging to some religion. 
 
 So that with regard to the prophecy, although the
 
 RELIGIOUS SECTS 99 
 
 Baptists have got more chapels, the Presbyterians can 
 boast more devotees (a visit to the churches will confirm 
 this), and, on the whole, the situation is little changed, 
 save that the Roman Catholics have vastly increased, 
 and now nominally may claim precedence over any other 
 sect. While the Scots are mainly Presbyterians, there 
 is a large number of Highland Roman Catholics, many 
 in Cape Breton, many in Antigonish County. At Anti- 
 gonish there is not only a Catholic University, but a 
 Catholic newspaper, very well conducted. The denomi- 
 national spirit is represented in the higher education, 
 King's College, Windsor, being Anglican ; Acadia Univer- 
 sity, Wolfeville, a Baptist foundation ; St. Francis Xavier 
 University at Antigonish I have just mentioned ; and the 
 Presbyterians regard Dalhousie as their College, although 
 it is undenominational. Indeed no denominational test 
 is required of students at any save the Roman Catholic 
 establishment. The Methodists resort to Mount Allison, 
 just across the Provincial frontier. 
 
 Pulpit oratory is not, I fear, cultivated as an art in 
 Nova Scotia. It is mostly, as one would expect it to be, 
 of a hortatory character. I have even heard it alleged 
 that the Nova Scotian parsons are a practical, canny class, 
 rather than ripe in culture and sound in scholarship. 
 
 It is when we come to speak of education that we 
 see the superiority of the system to that which has 
 long prevailed in England, and which prevails in other 
 countries. There is practically no illiterate element 
 in the community. While it is unnecessary to say that 
 some have received less education than others, one may
 
 ioo NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 look long before finding a man or woman unable to 
 read and write. There is a great difference between 
 the English and Nova Scotian systems in Nova Scotia 
 there is far more attention paid to the problem of educa- 
 tion, and a greater ambition on the part of all classes to 
 get beyond the elementary stage. 
 
 There are 2516 elementary schools in the Province, 
 attended by 100,000 children under the charge of 2664 
 teachers (which gives an average of one teacher to the 
 great majority of the schools). Education is free, both 
 in the elementary schools, which are maintained by 
 Government grants and very low local rates, and in the 
 numerous high schools. A Provincial Normal School 
 also offers free instruction for the training of teachers ; 
 and it may be said that, despite the fact that the 
 Province offers many lucrative careers for a brainy young 
 man, which makes it somewhat difficult to retain the 
 highest talent for this profession, the standard of teach- 
 ing in Nova Scotian schools is not inferior to the average 
 on the North American continent. In fact, it is probably 
 higher. 
 
 In various parts of the Province the old system of a 
 group of isolated one-teacher schools is being gradually 
 done away with, and " consolidated " schools are springing 
 up. These, each having several teachers, are looked upon 
 as an effective means of improving the education in county dis- 
 tricts. Of these there are at present twenty-three. I have 
 already described the Technical College lately established 
 in the capital ; while hand-work and household science are 
 thoroughly taught the boys and girls at various centres.
 
 ARTISTIC SHORTCOMINGS 101 
 
 Perhaps already the reader will have gathered that this 
 peninsula and island on the other side of the Atlantic has 
 everything, though but in embryo, of that which makes life 
 pleasant, useful, and prosperous, save Art. History shows 
 few communities of half a million people with fewer artistic 
 perceptions than New Scotland, and I know of no Nova 
 Scotia poet, Nova Scotia painter, Nova Scotia novelist, or 
 Nova Scotia architect of international repute. To some of 
 us to a few of us these are the things these books, 
 these pictures, these buildings, which make even little 
 nations glorious ; and of which they are prouder and the 
 world more grateful than for the products of the field, the 
 forge, the factory, and the counting-house. 
 
 But in this respect New Scotland resembles Old Scotland, 
 whose slow advance and scanty achievements in art were 
 once the wonder of Europe ; and even in New England it 
 took nearly two centuries of civilisation to throw off the 
 Puritan yoke and allow the imagination to dwell in and the 
 hand to create beauty. 
 
 Perhaps we who dwell in London, or Paris, or Rome, or 
 even New York, are apt to exaggerate the value of these 
 things. For here we see that a people may be generous, 
 industrious, and contented without picture-galleries, without, 
 indeed, ever having seen a first-rate picture, a first-rate 
 building. 
 
 At Yarmouth, more than the wharves, more than the 
 clipped hedges, than the fishermen, the electric street 
 tramway, and the manifold evidence of prosperity, was I 
 interested in two fragments of stone, comparable in their 
 way to other celebrated archaeological fragments in Europe
 
 102 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 and Asia which tell, and alone survive to tell, of long-past 
 ages and vanished peoples. These are Runic stones of 
 Yarmouth, lately reposing in private grounds, but now 
 gathered into the safer and more accessible quarters of the 
 Yarmouth Public Library. About the end of the eighteenth 
 century a doctor named Fletcher discovered on the shore of 
 the Bay of Fundy, opposite the town, a rock weighing about 
 four hundred pounds, bearing an inscription which, when 
 deciphered by a capable antiquarian, was found to read, 
 " Harkussen men varu " i.e., " Harku's son addressed the 
 men." 
 
 In the expedition of Tharfinn Karlsefne in 1007, the 
 name of Harku occurs in the list of those who accompanied 
 him. In a note on the published saga we read that on this 
 voyage " they came to a place where a firth penetrated far 
 into the country ; off the mouth of it was an island, past 
 which there ran strong currents, which was also the case 
 farther up the firth." 
 
 Why such a memento should be left on this Norse visit 
 to Markland cannot of course be explained, except to observe 
 that memorials were often made or erected in localities 
 where events had occurred, and in this instance the 
 chieftain's address may have here contained some notable 
 pronouncement, or even commemorated the landing at that 
 spot. 
 
 The second Runic stone was found so recently as 1897, 
 lying face downwards, half buried in the mud on the west 
 side of Yarmouth harbour, one mile from where the former 
 stone had been found. It is very similar in size and shape 
 to the Fletcher stone. Its face is as fair and as smooth as
 
 A RUNIC MYSTERY 103 
 
 if dressed by a lapidary, and the inscription is in the same 
 characters. Of course these two stones have excited great 
 interest among scholars and antiquarians, and attempts have 
 been made to dispute their Scandinavian origin, and to 
 ascribe them to Red Indians, Semites, and even to the 
 Japanese. 
 
 For example, one theorist, Dr. Campbell, who would 
 have rejoiced in assisting the Pickwickians in elucidating 
 the celebrated Stumps inscription, unhesitatingly finds the 
 inscription to be Japanese. He says that in old Japanese 
 
 this reads, 
 
 wahi deka Kuturade bushi goku. 
 
 Peacefully has gone out Kuturade, warrior eminent, or in other 
 words : a Kuturadem, the eminent warrior, has died in 
 peace." 
 
 It may very naturally be asked how it is known that 
 such is the reading, and how a Japanese inscription should 
 be found in Nova Scotia ? His answer to the first question 
 is that "the identical writing in question has been found in 
 Siberia, Mongolia, and Japan. ... As for the appearance 
 of old Japanese in America, I have known repeatedly that 
 the Choctaw, the Cree or Maskoki, the Ksaw, and all their 
 related tongues, are simply Japanese dialects." 
 
 Kuturade was apparently an Iroquois, whose modern 
 name would be Katorati, The Hunter. . . . And there is 
 reason for thinking that this memorial might belong to 
 the early historical period of French colonisation (early 
 seventeenth century). We cannot tell when our Indians lost 
 their ancient art of writing, which the Crees at least seem 
 to have retained in the middle of the last century.
 
 104 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 One reflects now upon the injustice, even the in- 
 humanity, of the British Columbians in seeking to exclude 
 the Japanese from their old home ! 
 
 But there seems, apart from prejudice and the fantastic 
 ingenuity of minds prepared to doubt anything from the 
 spherical shape of the earth to the utility of the bi-cameral 
 system in the British Constitution, no reason to doubt that 
 these stones are really tangible evidence of the pre-Columbian 
 discovery of Nova Scotia. Humboldt agreed with Carl 
 Rafu in believing that in the year 1001 A.D. the Icelanders 
 touched upon the North American coast, and that for nearly 
 two centuries subsequently numerous visits were made by 
 them and the Norwegians. 
 
 " Bjorn Heinolsen, an Icelander, was the first discoverer. 
 Steering for Greenland he was driven to the south by 
 tempestuous and unfavourable winds, and saw different 
 parts of America, without, however, touching at any of 
 them. Attracted by the report of this voyage, Leif, son of 
 Eric, the discoverer of Greenland, fitted out a vessel to 
 pursue the same adventure. He passed the coast visited by 
 Bjorn, and steered south-west till he reached a strait between 
 a large island and the mainland. Finding the country 
 fertile and pleasant, he passed the winter near this place, 
 and gave it the name of Vinland, from the wild vine 
 growing there in great abundance." According to Rafu, 
 " Bjorn first saw land in the island of Nantucket, one 
 degree south of Boston, then in Nova Scotia, then in 
 Newfoundland." 
 
 Accurate information respecting the former intercourse 
 of the Northmen with the continent of North America
 
 NORTHMEN IN MARKLAND 105 
 
 reaches only as far as the middle of the fourteenth century. 
 In the year 1349 a ship was sent from Greenland to Mark- 
 land (Nova Scotia) to collect timber. Upon their return 
 from Markland the ship was overtaken by storms and 
 compelled to land at Straumfjord, in the west of Iceland. 
 This is the last account of the Northmen in the New 
 World preserved to us in the ancient Scandinavian writings. 
 
 Says Rafu : " The principal sources of information are 
 the historical narratives of Eric the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefne, 
 and Snorre Thorbrandson, probably written in Greenland 
 itself as early as the twelfth century, partly by descendants 
 of the settlers born in Vinland." One account in par- 
 ticular seems to point very strongly to a visit to this part 
 of Nova Scotia, and is as follows : 
 
 "Thorfinn Karlsefne, in 1007, in one ship, and Birone 
 Grimolfsen in another ship, left Greenland for Vinland 
 (Massachusetts). They had a hundred and sixty men, and 
 took all kinds of live stock, intending to establish a colony. 
 They sailed southerly and found Helluland (Newfound- 
 land), where there were many foxes. They again sailed 
 southerly and found Markland (Nova Scotia), overgrown 
 with wood. They continued south-westerly a long time, 
 having the land to starboard, passing long beaches, and 
 deserts and sands, and came to a land indented with inlets. 
 They landed and explored the country, finding grapes and 
 some ears of wheat, which grew wild. They continued 
 their course until they came to a place where a frith 
 penetrated far into the country. Off the mouth of it was 
 an island, past which there ran strong currents, which was 
 also the case further up the frith, &c."
 
 io6 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 The long beaches and deserts of sand referred to above, 
 seemingly refer to those stretching along the coast line from 
 Hawk Point, Cape Island, in a north-easterly direction, 
 one of which makes a fine race-course, at least six miles long. 
 
 In the distance, across Harrington Passage, may be 
 seen stretches of sandy hills not less than 40 feet high. 
 These are visible at a great distance from seaward. The 
 reference, " they came to a place," with the other geographical 
 details, made a strong case for Yarmouth as the landing 
 place of old Thorfinn. 
 
 It would be surprising if in a country with such a line 
 of sea-coast as Nova Scotia, with adjacent forests of every 
 kind of hard and soft woods, and with a population largely 
 depending upon fishing, shipbuilding should not early have 
 been begun. 
 
 At Yarmouth, about 1761, with the building of a small 
 schooner, christened the James, of about 25 tons burden, 
 the industry had its birth. From the time of the launching 
 of this modest craft until that of the County of Yarmouth, 
 a full rigged ship of 2154 tons, in 1886, there is seen 
 a steady development of the shipbuilding industry, in 
 which the south-western portion of the Province bore the 
 leading part. 
 
 In 1765 there were said to be in Queen's County alone 
 seventeen sail of fishing schooners, all of native construction. 
 Other portions of the southern coast were not far behind. 
 Trade with the West Indies soon became important, and 
 before the close of the eighteenth century larger schooners 
 and brigantines were built, running to upwards of one 
 hundred tons.
 
 OLD SHIPBUILDING DAYS 107 
 
 Somewhat later the export of timber from the various 
 ports along the Northumberland Strait induced shipbuilding 
 on a very much larger scale. Soon after the Highlanders 
 came to Pictou they turned their attention to the exports 
 of timber in home-built vessels, and many of these of 
 considerable burden were built. 1 
 
 This time not merely Yarmouth, and Shelburne, and 
 Liverpool, and Pictou, but all New Scotland, owned an 
 important fleet of sailing ships, but still small in number 
 compared with the veritable navy they were to own and 
 be enriched by within a few years. 
 
 The forty years, from 1840 to 1880, saw the palmiest 
 days of this great industry. One still hears tales of the 
 mighty Captain George M'Kenzie of New Glasgow, to 
 whom more than to any one man Nova Scotia owed the 
 great impetus that was given during this period to ship- 
 building. Along the ports of the Northumberland Strait, 
 at least, this worthy mariner and builder, full of energy and 
 genius, did more than any one else to improve the character 
 of the ships built. He twice represented the County of 
 Pictou in the Legislature, and, indeed, his shipbuilding 
 ventures are referred to by his friend, Joseph Howe, in the 
 latter's famous speech on the " Unification of the Empire." 
 
 In 1850 Captain M'Kenzie was presented with a 
 service of plate by the merchants of Glasgow on the 
 occasion of the arrival of one of his 1500 ton ships, 
 the Hamilton Campbell Kidston, which was the largest 
 vessel that up to that time had ascended the Clyde. 
 
 1 For this information I am indebted, inter alia, to an admirable little 
 paper by Mr. R. M. M'Gregor, M.P.P.
 
 io8 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Along the Northumberland Strait, Pictou, New Glas- 
 gow, Tatamagouche, River John, and Merigomish, were all 
 noted for their shipbuilding. The Crimean War gave a 
 decided impetus to the industry, and about this time there 
 were said to be in New Glasgow alone fourteen square- 
 rigged vessels built in one year. The coal trade from 
 Pictou to the United States was also a stimulus. 
 
 In the west, Yarmouth, Windsor, Hantsport, Mait- 
 land, Londonderry, and other Bay of Fundy ports were 
 centres for shipbuilding. But, indeed, there were scarcely 
 any harbours or rivers of note, both in the mainland and 
 parts of the Island of Cape Breton, that did not play a 
 greater or less part in this great industry. 
 
 A little over a quarter of a century ago there were regis- 
 tered in Nova Scotia 3025 vessels, with a tonnage of 558,91 1 
 tons, or about one and a quarter tons of shipping per capita of 
 the population, a larger holding than any other country in 
 the world, not even excepting those of Northern Europe. 
 
 The fleet of Yarmouth alone covered every ocean, and 
 represented the largest tonnage per capita of any port in 
 the world. You saw Yarmouth ships in Helsingfors and 
 Monte Video. 
 
 The building and rigging of such a fleet of course 
 gave lucrative employment to a vast army of men. 
 Loggers, choppers, shipwrights, carpenters, blacksmiths, 
 caulkers, riggers, were employed full time at good wages. 
 But freights fell lower and lower. Conditions changed 
 in the carrying trade, and at Yarmouth I gathered that 
 the prosperous days of wooden sailing vessels reached 
 their zenith in 1879, when they had to give way to iron
 
 FISHING VESSELS 109 
 
 sailing ships, these again to be replaced by the tramp 
 steamer which has invaded every sea, lake, and river 
 formerly sailed by the white-winged fleet. 
 
 And so the immense fleet of Yarmouth vanished. 
 Some of its owners were ruined, and others retired with 
 a more than comfortable competence. A few capitalists 
 foresaw the coming change the incoming of steam 
 and established other marine industries. 
 
 Nova Scotia ceased not only to be a shipbuilding, 
 but also to be a ship-owning and ship-operating country. 
 
 But in consequence of the recent revival of the lumber 
 trade to America and to the Southern Continent, there has 
 come the building of a large number of smaller vessels 
 in the Bay of Fundy ports. Three-masted schooners, of 
 some 300 and 400 tons, have been launched, while the 
 demand for smaller vessels for the West India trade has 
 never entirely ceased, and such are being launched every 
 year from Shelburne and other ports of the southern 
 shore. From the same portion of the Province, and in 
 particular from the County of Lunenburg, where the 
 fishing industry is pursued vigorously, fishing vessels are 
 being constantly built. 
 
 In quality of construction, these Nova Scotia built 
 boats have obtained an enviable reputation, and it would 
 seem as if it would be many years before the wooden 
 shipbuilding industry will be entirely lost to the Pro- 
 vince. Something has indeed been done in the way of 
 the construction of small steam boats, and nearly all the 
 coastal steam packets are home-built. 
 
 Yet, when the big wooden ships vanished, Yarmouth
 
 i io NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 captains, as factors in the world's mercantile marine, 
 remained. Their experience and reputation insured them 
 employment elsewhere. After these vessels had become 
 obsolete, and were forced from the trade, these tried 
 fellows were eagerly sought for by English and Scotch 
 shipping firms, as skilled mariners and of unquestionable 
 integrity. To-day many important ships in America and 
 Britain are commanded by Nova Scotians, and Yarmuthians 
 in particular. 
 
 Wooden shipbuilding on a grand scale being a thing 
 of the past, if the sea-loving New Scotlanders are to 
 become again a race of shipbuilders and sailors, it must 
 be in steel bottoms. Already a beginning has been made 
 in a small way. Several small steel steamers have been 
 built in the town of New Glasgow, and one has lately 
 been launched at Yarmouth. 
 
 At the former place was launched last year the 
 three-master steel schooner James William^ of about 500 
 tons register. As a swift sailer, and more particularly 
 as a good carrier, this vessel has more than exceeded 
 the expectations of her builders. The beginning so 
 auspiciously made is full of promise for the future, and it 
 may well be said that within the next few years Nova Scotia 
 may come back to her own, and once more take her place 
 under newer conditions as a great shipbuilding country. 
 
 Many of the Yarmouth fishermen repair to Gloucester 
 in the spring, and go to the Banks in vessels from that 
 port. These do well as a rule, and in November troop 
 home to enjoy the fruits of their labours. There are no 
 Bank fishermen out of Yarmouth ports nowadays, and
 
 PUBNICO in 
 
 those who do not go out of Gloucester remain at home 
 and conduct fishing operations " off shore." Very often 
 fish are scarce when bait is plentiful, and vice versa, and 
 oftentimes during the early fall the weather is so rough 
 that operations are perforce suspended for days at a time. 
 
 Of late, however, I was informed, large schools of 
 herrings have struck in along the shores, and big catches 
 have been made, so big in fact that at some points schooner 
 loads have been shipped to the American market. 
 
 The Argylls strongly suggest the scenery of the 
 Scottish Highlands, and must have done so to the 
 Western Highlanders who first settled the place. It is 
 the centre of a fine fishing and hunting country. There is 
 a remarkably curious natural phenomena at the "Narrows"; 
 for six hours the waters rush madly up stream, and for the 
 next six tumble as rapidly down again. The island-studded 
 waters provide fine duck shooting, and Lobster Bay is a 
 famous spot for these crustaceans. 
 
 As for Pubnico, it claims to be the very oldest French 
 Acadian settlement, being planted by D'Entremont in 
 1650, and is still peopled by that race. The harbour is 
 a beautiful sheet of land-locked water, where exceptionally 
 safe bathing and boating may be had. Many little old- 
 fashioned villages are close at hand, and are an object lesson 
 in early French habits and customs. 
 
 Barrington was described to me as a "homey" little 
 place, where visitors have delightfully jolly candy-pulls, 
 clambakes, and lobster-roasts nightly around roaring bon- 
 fires on the beach.
 
 ii2 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 I had long wanted to see Cape Sable Island. I was told 
 that it had enjoyed an unwonted prosperity during the last 
 few years. The island is seven miles long and from two to 
 three miles across, with a steam ferry plying to Barrington 
 Passage. It is famous for its splendid beaches, Hawk and 
 Stoney Island, and all sorts of shore and sea birds are found 
 here in abundance, and furnish good sport. 
 
 The first settlement appears to have been made about 
 1786 by Michael Swim, who had previously migrated from 
 New York to Shelburne. Being a man of some education, 
 he was long known as the Clerk of the Island, and hence, 
 according to one tradition, the name Clark's Harbour. 
 
 It is well worth while leaving the railway at Barrington 
 and traverse nine miles towards the coast to see the relics of 
 Fort St. Louis, now called Port La Tour. Here was the 
 scene of one of the most romantic episodes in the history of 
 Acadia. In 1627 the gallant young Charles de la Tour 
 was entrenched here. Hearing of the English plan to 
 drive the French from Acadia, and strong in his alliance 
 with the Micmacs, he wrote Louis XIII. asking to be 
 appointed commandant of all the coasts of Acadia. His 
 father, Claude de la Tour, it will be remembered, bore the 
 letter, and on the way back was captured by Sir David 
 Kirke, and taken to England. 1 Here he renounced his 
 loyalty to the French king, married an English lady, was 
 made a baronet of Nova Scotia, and received a large grant 
 in Acadia for himself and his son. Sir Claude then sailed 
 with his wife and an escort of two warships to where his 
 son Charles was holding the last fort in Acadia. 
 
 * See ante, p. 19.
 
 PORT LA TOUR 113 
 
 Meanwhile the youthful French hero, lord of Acadia 
 under Poutrincourt's charter, knew nothing of his good 
 fortune or of these paternal proceedings. When Sir Claude 
 reached his destination here at Fort St. Louis, he demanded 
 an interview with his son, who was astonished to find his 
 father in command of an English ship and wearing the 
 dress of an English admiral. Sir Claude related the 
 flattering reception he had met with in London, and the 
 honours that had been heaped upon him. 
 
 Instead of showing joy, Charles was thunderstruck. 
 He replied haughtily that " if those who sent you on this 
 errand think me capable of betraying my country, even at 
 the solicitation of a parent, they have greatly mistaken me. 
 I am not disposed to purchase the honours now offered me 
 by committing a crime. I do not undervalue the proffer of 
 the King of England ; but the Prince in whose service I am 
 is quite able to reward me ; and whether he does so or not, 
 the inward consciousness of my fidelity to him will be in 
 itself a recompense to me. The King of France has 
 confided the defence of this place to me. I shall maintain 
 it, if attacked, till my latest breath." 
 
 In these circumstances Sir Claude thought to bring the 
 ungrateful youth to reason by force. Thrice he landed his 
 soldiers and sailors and tried to storm Fort St. Louis, but in 
 vain. His men were repulsed, and soon became disgusted 
 with the whole enterprise. 
 
 Eventually they all repaired to Port Royal and took up 
 settlement with the other Scotch colonists there. It might 
 be supposed that in this extremity the young English girl 
 to whom Sir Claude had promised power and luxury on his 
 
 H
 
 ii 4 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Nova Scotian estates would now desire to return to England ; 
 but she refused. 
 
 " I have shared your prosperity, Sir Claude," she said, " I 
 
 will now share your evil fortunes." And evil they proved. 
 
 For in 1632, after the shameful treaty of St. Germain- 
 
 en-Laye, by which Canada and Nova Scotia were ceded 
 
 back to France by King Charles I., Sir Claude, " between 
 
 the devil and the deep sea," was fain at last to throw 
 
 himself on the mercy of his son, who established the couple 
 
 and their suite in comfort, some distance from the fort, 
 
 and there he remained for some time, until King Charles 
 
 found employment for him elsewhere in British Dominions. 
 
 I have related elsewhere something of the drama of the 
 
 young La Tours, of the heroism of the wife when besieged 
 
 by the villain Charnisay, of her death, of the long exile of 
 
 her husband, and his marriage with the widow of his enemy. 
 
 Upon such a spot one could hardly look unmoved ; 
 
 but explore as one might, all trace of the La Tours seems 
 
 to have vanished from off the earth, save that on the page 
 
 of history and their names on the map. 
 
 In the old days the Acadians were settled in considerable 
 numbers about Harrington. At the time of their expulsion, 
 a flourishing settlement, with stone church and grist mill, 
 was utterly destroyed, the cattle burnt, and the inhabitants 
 deported to Boston and Halifax. Some few returned after- 
 wards to Cape Sable and received grants in Pubnico, where 
 they contributed to the present thrifty settlement. 
 
 In 1761-63, some eighty families from Nantucket and 
 Cape Cod settled in Barrington, but about half of them, 
 disappointed in their hope of making this a whaling station,
 
 A SPORTSMAN'S COUNTRY 115 
 
 soon returned ; and in 1767 the township of Harrington, 
 including Cape Sable Island, was granted to a body of one 
 hundred and two New Englanders. 
 
 Harrington is a quiet and picturesque little town, to 
 which a goodly number of summer visitors resort. It is 
 easy of access, being on the railway, and a point of call for 
 the smaller steamers from Yarmouth and Clark's Harbour. 
 I am not sure whether it is not worth mentioning, but 
 Harrington is one of the few small towns in New Scotland 
 whose streets are lighted by oil lamps set upon old-fashioned 
 lamp-posts. The posts were brought from Boston many 
 years ago. 
 
 Between Harrington and Shelburne, scattered for some 
 twenty-seven miles inland, lie what are called the Clyde 
 settlements. The river Clyde is a really beautiful stream, 
 and rich in salmon and trout. The railway station is at 
 Port Clyde, near its mouth, and Clyde River settlement is 
 two and a half miles further up. Goose Lake, Goose 
 Creek, and Bower's Lake are favourite haunts of trout 
 fishers. 
 
 Seventeen miles further up the river is Middle Clyde, 
 and Upper Clyde still another ten both pretty villages, 
 within easy reach of lake and river fishing. This is a good 
 moose ground, partridge and rabbits are plentiful, and the 
 skilled hunter may add to his bag a brace of wild cat or an 
 occasional bear.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SHELBURNE AND THE LOYALISTS 
 
 THERE are, apart from the capital, six famous historical 
 shrines in New Scotland Annapolis Royal, Louisbourg, 
 Grand Pr6, Fort Lawrence, and Shelburne. How many 
 English readers know anything of Shelburne ? How many 
 have ever so much as heard the name ? And yet, once, a 
 century and a quarter ago, the uprising of this town, in a 
 single night as it were, the sufferings of the 12,000 Ameri- 
 can Loyalist refugees who had landed there to found it, 
 evoked a widespread interest. The tale of the Loyalists of 
 Shelburne rang through the hall at Westminster, and in the 
 Colonial Assemblies. It was told in the closet of the King, 
 and was set forth in the newspapers ; and what a story it 
 was ! English history scarce can show its parallel. It is 
 the tale of the exiled Huguenots, but the impelling motive 
 was not loyalty to a form of faith, but to an earthly 
 sovereign and a flag. How much fanaticism, how much 
 bigotry, is interwoven with religious sacrifice ! We may 
 respect, but we cannot love the cold and narrow minds 
 who, whether called Protestant, or Catholic, or Puritan, fled 
 from their country because of the doctrine they disliked or 
 an article they distrusted, who were ready to put seas of 
 salt water between them and a rubric, or to risk seas of 
 human blood to escape the sight of a chasuble or the 
 necessity for a genuflexion. 
 
 116
 
 AMERICAN LOYALISTS 117 
 
 But personal loyalty one understands the love for 
 one's flag and one's own people strikes a responsive chord 
 in warm bosoms. The Puritans, I fear, who founded New 
 England, were but indifferent patriots. The cry of "St. 
 George and Merry England ! " would amongst them have 
 proved a feeble tocsin. 
 
 The Loyalists were, as I have said, the best class in 
 America, comprising the most notable judges, the most 
 eminent lawyers, most cultured clergy, most distinguished 
 physicians, most educated and refined of the people north 
 and south. Long before the war broke out, the Boston 
 mobs had persecuted them for their political professions. 
 Any official or merchant sympathising with the British 
 Army or British Government of the day was a target for 
 their insolence. They set Governor Hutchinson's mansion 
 in flames ; sheriffs and judges were mobbed, feeble old 
 men were driven into the woods, and innocent women in- 
 sulted. With the progress of the war, the violence of the 
 revolutionists increased in intensity. Thousands sought 
 safety with the King's troops ; many others armed them- 
 selves and fought valiantly for the King and the British 
 connection. To be suspected of being a Loyalist was to 
 have one's estate confiscated, and even to be punished 
 with death. 
 
 But what the Loyalists suffered during the war, when 
 the issue of the contest was doubtful, was nothing to what 
 they had to endure after 1783. 
 
 The British Empire had been badly served by the officers 
 England had sent out to America. If Wolfe had lived to 
 direct her armies, the end might have been different ; but
 
 ii8 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 mismanagement reigned, and such Generals as Gage, 
 Burgoyne, and Cornwallis, planned feebly and fought half- 
 heartedly. If there was any doubt as to the result, that 
 doubt was speedily set at rest when England's hereditary 
 enemy, France, espoused the cause of the American in- 
 surgents. French money, ships, and men poured into 
 America. The Americans fought with French muskets, 
 they were clad in French clothing, and they were paid with 
 gold which the impoverished people of France could ill 
 spare. Great is the debt America owes to the French King 
 and statesmen of that time. 1 
 
 With the conclusion of the war, the men who had stood 
 staunch and faithful to the United Empire were destined to 
 undergo a further ordeal. As " traitors " they were pursued 
 through the streets ; their families were driven into the 
 woods ; they were shot down remorselessly. Rows of them 
 were hung up like felons. At the battle of King's 
 Mountain, in North Carolina, ten of the prisoners, men 
 of character and influence, were hanged in cold blood. 
 There were many instances of ferocious executions upon 
 prisoners. 
 
 Under the Treaty of 1783 they had been abandoned by 
 the Mother Country to the tender mercies of the American 
 conquerors. 
 
 "When I consider the case of the Loyalists," said 
 Wilberforce in Parliament, "I confess I there feel myself 
 conquered ; I there see my country humiliated ; I there 
 see her at the feet of America ! " " A peace founded 
 on the sacrifice of these unhappy subjects," declared 
 1 The Romance of Canada, by Heckles Willson, 1907.
 
 A LAND OF CANAAN 119 
 
 another, " must be accursed in the sight of God and 
 
 man." 1 
 
 Nova Scotia proper, during the war, had not been 
 molested, and to it the Loyalists now turned in large 
 numbers as a refuge under the flag. Acadia was to be the 
 Canaan of the Loyalists. 
 
 Somewhere for most of them knew it but vaguely 
 in that northern land, in the virgin forests of pine, and 
 maple, and hemlock, in the solitudes of seashore, lake, and 
 river, which no man of English blood had yet seen, was the 
 refuge the Loyalists sought. 
 
 In November 1783, New York was evacuated by the 
 King's troops under Sir Guy Carlton. He carried with 
 him all the stores belonging to the Crown, all baggage and 
 artillery, and he was accompanied by 40,000 men, women, 
 and children. New York was the stronghold of the 
 Loyalists ; Pennsylvania had been equally divided between 
 Loyalists and Revolutionists ; there were more Loyalists in 
 Virginia than adherents of Congress ; and Georgia had at 
 least three Loyalists for every rebel. Thousands had 
 perished ; thousands had sought refuge in England ; thou- 
 sands had recanted. Fifty thousand now set out with their 
 wives and children and such belongings as were left to 
 them to traverse the hundreds of miles which lay between 
 them and their new homesteads in Canada. These United 
 Empire Loyalists were the fathers of English Canada. 
 
 There are few tales which history has to tell so stirring 
 
 1 " I trust you will agree with me that a due and generous attention 
 ought to be shown to those who have relinquished their property or their 
 possessions from motives of loyalty to me, or attachment to the Mother 
 Country." King's Speech, 1783.
 
 120 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 and so noble as the exodus of the Loyalists. Most of them 
 had been brought up in comfort and even luxury ; their 
 women were tenderly nurtured and unaccustomed to hard- 
 ship. But one spirit animated them all ; one hope fired all 
 their bosoms ; one faith drove them out of the American 
 Republic into the wilderness. 
 
 The exiles were divided into two main streams, one 
 moving eastward to Nova Scotia and the country where, a 
 century and a half before, Poutrincourt and La Tour had 
 fought and flourished. The other moved westward to the 
 region north of Lake Ontario. Those who followed the 
 eastern course landed at the mouth of the St. John River, 
 New Brunswick, on the i8th May 1783, a day still 
 celebrated in the city of St. John's. They took up settle- 
 ments in the meadows of the Bay of Fundy, and at Port 
 Rasoir in Nova Scotia. There, like the city in the Arabian 
 tale, there sprang up, as if by magic, the town of Shel- 
 burne, with 12,000 inhabitants, where yesterday had been 
 but solitude. 
 
 " No one will know because none has told all that these 
 brave pioneers underwent for their devotion and fidelity. 
 You will see to-day on the outskirts of the older settle- 
 ments little mounds, moss-covered tombstones which record 
 the last resting places of the forefathers of the hamlet. 
 They do not tell you of the brave hearts laid low by hunger 
 and exposure, of the girlish forms wasted away, of the babes 
 and little children who perished for want of proper food and 
 raiment. They have nothing to tell of the courageous 
 high-minded mothers, wives, and daughters, who bore 
 themselves as bravely as men, complaining never, toiling
 
 LANDING AT SHELBURNE 121 
 
 with the men in the fields, banishing all regrets for the life 
 they might have led had they sacrificed their loyalty. . . . 
 No great monument is raised to their memory ; none is 
 needed ; it is enshrined for ever in the hearts of every 
 Canadian and of every one who admires fidelity to principle, 
 devotion, and self-sacrifice." l 
 
 In the spring of 1783 a fleet of eighteen large ships 
 and several small vessels, convoyed by two warships, brought 
 471 Loyalist families from New York to a fine harbour 
 called Port Roseway (Rasoir), where the redoubtable Colonel 
 M'Nutt had a few years before intended to build the city 
 of New Jerusalem. There, too, 
 
 The breaking wave dashed high 
 On a stern and rock-bound coast ; 
 
 but the shiploads of Americans, whose cause of King and 
 United Empire had been lost, hoped they were destined to 
 a propitious spot where they could begin their fortunes 
 anew. When these Loyalists, who called themselves 
 " True Blues," landed, what a picture was then presented ! 
 
 " As soon as we had set up a kind of tent we knelt 
 down, my wife and I and our two boys, and kissed the dear 
 ground and thanked God that the flag of England floated 
 there, and resolved that we would work with the rest to 
 become again happy and prosperous." 
 
 And the spirit which animated the bosom of worthy 
 Jonathan Beecher and his flock dwelt with nearly all of 
 those five thousand foregathered on the sloping shore of 
 this beautiful harbour. Lanterns and torches flamed that 
 night ; laughter and tears intermingled. Hundreds of 
 1 Romance of Canada^ p. 260.
 
 122 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 forms moved about restlessly. There was singing of 
 hymns, trolling of glees, and toasting of His Majesty 
 and Governor Parr. Trunks, and packing-cases, and valises 
 were opened. A table was brought from the ship, and 
 round it sat a number of ladies in silk dresses and 
 powdered hair. A few desired a dance as an outlet for 
 their tumultuous thoughts ; and so there in the moonlight 
 the young, the hopeful, the light-hearted, that all their 
 recent sufferings could not wholly dismay, danced a 
 quadrille danced it out of sheer high spirits, and only 
 separated at dawn. 
 
 And the woods behind a group of swarthy Micmacs 
 and their squaws came to overpeer and wonder at the 
 spectacle thinking a host of mad folk had been blown 
 across the Big Drink. Mad indeed they were mad for 
 joy mad in their hopes and schemes mad in their utter 
 improvidence. 
 
 Other immigrants followed, and within a short time 
 16,000 inhabitants were here. A fort was built, troops 
 were stationed, and warships continually paraded the 
 harbour ; and much work was done, particularly wharf 
 and road building. In 1788 the exports comprised 
 13,151 quintals dry cod, 4193 casks of pickled fish, 
 6 1 casks of smoked salmon, 149 barrels fish oil, and 
 14,793 gallons sperm oil. During the year Prince 
 William Henry (afterwards William IV.) visited the 
 town, a ball being given in his honour. Yet even then 
 Shelburne was existing on an artificial basis. For the 
 first three years 9000 of the "True Blues" (or Blue 
 Noses) drew rations from the British Government, and
 
 THE OLD GOVERNOR'S HOUSE, SHELBURNE.
 
 THE GOVERNOR'S HOUSE 123 
 
 demoralisation set in. Then came a great storm in 1798 
 which wiped out wharves and shipping ; other calamities 
 followed, and by 1818 the population had dwindled to 
 300 souls. 
 
 As I walked through the ghost of that old Shelburne, 
 all the scenes and events of the next few weeks, months 
 and years, as I had once read of them in Colonial records 
 and in old journals and letters, came back to me, and 
 I could in my mind's eye reconstruct it all. This wide 
 street, overgrown now with grass, running up from the 
 harbour, was King Street ; this other was Queen Street ; 
 this other Princes Street. For months carpenters and 
 masons were busy hewing timber, hammering and hoisting, 
 digging and mortaring. Rows after rows of houses 
 appeared, and in a short time Shelburne, but yesterday 
 a wilderness, presented all the appearance of a flourishing 
 town. Some of the houses are still standing. There is 
 the Governor's house, a stately edifice enough, of that old 
 Colonial pattern that the modern builder seems to have lost 
 the recipe for making. It stands not far from the water's 
 edge, and is reached by a flight of steep steps. Its face is 
 half hid by Virginia creeper. An old, old man came to 
 the door and bade me enter. His name is Frith, and he is 
 a carpenter by trade. He has long lived in the old house, 
 and his father could remember the landing of the Loyalists. 
 The house is panelled throughout, and there are fine and 
 spacious fireplaces and chimney-pieces. Here was the social 
 centre of Shelburne in its prime. 
 
 The fine dwellings dropped to pieces, or were burnt, 
 cattle and sheep might graze in the streets, the fort was
 
 124 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 dismantled. A few clung, however, to Shelburne, and 
 their descendants are to-day witnessing the revival of the 
 town's fortunes. 
 
 Lockeport is charmingly situated on an island, connected 
 with the mainland at its nearest point by a substantial iron 
 bridge. To the left of the island the bay runs inland for 
 several miles ; to the right a low shielding promontory 
 juts out to sea. The harbour is safe and free from squalls, 
 affording splendid opportunities for yachting. The bathing 
 beach, a glistening crescent of hard, white sand, extends 
 for a mile or more. It is the general playground and 
 fashionable promenade of the town. 
 
 Good salmon and trout streams are easily accessible. 
 The Jordan River, back on the road to Shelburne, is 
 especially famous for hard fighting salmon and gamy 
 trout. Feathered game are in abundance. The extensive 
 moose country of the Sable River district is within easy 
 reach, and moose are plentiful enough for those who 
 know the way of the woods. For black duck and wild 
 geese the vicinities of Port Jolie, Port L'Herbert, and 
 Jones Harbour enjoy great local repute. 
 
 The district about Lockeport was for a long time 
 known as Ragged Islands. Just a century and a half ago 
 Dr. Jonathan Locke, of Chilmark, Mass., and Josiah 
 Churchill came here, selecting with great discrimination 
 the spot best situated with regard to the fishing grounds. 
 
 Throughout the war of the Revolution the settlers of 
 Lockeport, unlike their neighbours at Liverpool, seem to 
 have kept out of active hostilities, though their sympathies 
 were strongly American. Their feelings were very much
 
 LOCKEPORT 125 
 
 hurt, therefore, when in 1779 some American privateers 
 came ashore and looted their houses, and an indignant 
 protest, signed by Jonathan Locke and several others, is 
 still to be found in the archives of Massachusetts. After 
 reciting how the scoundrels took from one house " nineteen 
 quintals of codfish, four barrels of salt, three salmon nets, 
 some cheese, and a great many other things," this memorial 
 continues : 
 
 " These things are very surprising that we in this harbour 
 have done so much for America, that we have helped three 
 or four hundred prisoners up along to America, and given 
 part of our living to them, and have concealed privateers 
 and prizes too from the British cruisers in this harbour. 
 All this done for America, and if this be the way we are to 
 be paid, I desire to see no more of you without you come 
 in another manner." 
 
 During the war of 1812 some excitement was caused by 
 the approach of a hostile vessel, at a time when most of the 
 men were away. The women and children were promptly 
 lined up on the bluff, with red coats and broomsticks to 
 lend a martial appearance, while some of the women 
 marched up and down with a drum, and shots were fired 
 with the available muskets and fowling pieces. The enemy 
 made good their escape. 
 
 On a burning July day I stood on the seashore and 
 looked out on Port Mouton (pronounced Ma-toon), and in 
 my mind's eye saw two ghosts. One was of the immortal 
 sheep which fell over the taffrail of De Monts's ship three 
 centuries ago ; the other was the ghost of the town of 
 Guysborough. Do not be misled, dear reader ; there is
 
 iz6 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 still a Guysborough in New Scotland ; but it is another 
 place, hundreds of miles away, which has clothed itself, so 
 to speak, with the name of its deceased predecessor as with 
 a garment. That Guysborough is at Chedabucto Bay, and 
 flourishes ; this Guysborough was at Port Mouton, and is 
 dead more than a century and a quarter. 
 
 Settled by pioneers of Massachusetts stock was Liverpool. 
 I was told that there are even more descendants of the 
 original Pilgrim Fathers in this little New Liverpool on the 
 southern shore of New Scotland, in proportion to the popu- 
 lation, than in Massachusetts itself. A warrant to survey a 
 township was granted in 1759 by the Governor of Nova 
 Scotia to a committee representing some one hundred and 
 forty-two proprietors, all of New England, and many of 
 them direct descendants of the Mayflower pilgrims. 
 
 But a century and a half before this, in 1604, Sieur de 
 Monts had entered the harbour and named it Port Rossignol, 
 after a certain captain whom he found unwittingly poaching 
 on his preserves, and whose vessel he confiscated. This 
 was on the famous voyage that led to the selection of Port 
 Royal (now Annapolis Royal) as the best site for a 
 settlement. 
 
 Later Port Rossignol formed part of La Tour's La 
 He"ve, under the protection of the fort there ; and, though 
 the fisheries were considered of some importance, the 
 settlements were small and by no means permanent. 
 
 At the period when the hardy ancestors of the present 
 inhabitants of Liverpool fixed on this as a site for settlement, 
 the peninsula was almost a solitude. There were a few 
 unfortunate Acadians who had made their homes with the
 
 LIVERPOOL 127 
 
 Indians, and the Annapolis valley was from end to end 
 a scene of desolation, extending for many miles to the 
 eastward and westward. There were two small military 
 posts, one at Annapolis and a second at Windsor. Halifax 
 had only been founded about ten years. At Lunenburg 
 some unfortunate Germans had been making a desperate 
 struggle for about six years. 1 
 
 Hither came in 1760 a number of New England families 
 attracted by the well-sheltered haven, the fine river, the 
 salmon fishing, and also, I think, already conscious of the 
 spirit of insubordination and unrest in the older colonies 
 they quitted. Those early immigrants endured during the 
 first few seasons severe privations, one winter subsisting 
 almost wholly upon wild rabbits. But others came to join 
 them, until, in a couple of years, they numbered eighty 
 families. They continued to thrive ; the settlement was 
 formed into a township of 100,000 acres, and divided 
 amongst them into 200 shares. A century ago the popu- 
 lation was close upon 1000 souls. 
 
 During the American Revolution the American 
 privateers proved a constant source of annoyance and 
 actual damage, and there is ample proof that the 
 Liverpudlians were at least justified in retaliating in 
 kind. In 1779 several of them obtained Letters of 
 Marque from the British Government, with assistance for 
 arming vessels, and a grant for a block-house and 
 barracks. 
 
 Smuggling, too, was a popular pursuit ; one citizen 
 in 1782 is recorded as having turned informer, and 
 
 1 D. R. Jack, Acadiensis.
 
 128 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 shortly afterwards the Government offered a reward of 
 ^20 for information leading to the conviction of the 
 person or persons who had cut off the said citizen's ears. 
 
 Throughout the Revolutionary War, the subsequent 
 strife between England, and France, and Spain, and the 
 later war with America, Liverpool privateers are frequently 
 heard of. Many a prize was brought in triumph into 
 Liverpool Harbour, and the little town emerged richer 
 and more prosperous than before. I have read some- 
 where that the great fortune of the Hon. Enos Collins, 
 long reputed the richest man in the province, and himself 
 Liverpool born, though trading from Halifax, was founded 
 on the winnings of his privateer captains. 1 
 
 Haliburton, in 1829, wrote: "Liverpool is the best 
 built town in Nova Scotia. The houses are substantially 
 good and well painted, and there is an air of regularity 
 and neatness in the place which distinguishes it from every 
 other town in this province." 
 
 1 " Those were busy times in the town," writes Mr. Charles Warman, of 
 Liverpool. " Sailors and ship's carpenters abounded. Nightly they would 
 meet in some public-house, and many tales of interesting adventures were 
 told, while often shipmates who had been separated for years, and had 
 been to all parts of the globe, would come together and be joyful. 
 
 " Then vessels often went below the bar to complete loading a thing 
 practically unknown to-day, owing to the deepening of the channel when 
 the lumber would be rafted to them. If an easterly gale came upon them 
 they had to hoist anchor and put back to the wharves. Occasionally from 
 the storm there was the loss of ship and crew. As an instance, the barques 
 Wave and Kate Campbell, that had lain below for some days completing 
 cargoes, were caught and piled up, one near Sandy Cove, the other upon 
 the Fort both total wrecks, neither having ever been to sea. At that time 
 a schooner from Newfoundland, bound west, had sought shelter here, and 
 she also went ashore. Every one of its sailors was flung lifeless upon the 
 beach. The loss of any craft to-day in the harbour is a rare occurrence."
 
 LIVERPOOL FORT 129 
 
 Unhappily, lack of railway communication kept the 
 town back, but within the past few years Liverpool is 
 with great strides overtaking competitors. There are now 
 a fine water and electric light service, first-class hotels, 
 electric marine slip and shipyards, a foundry, machine- 
 shop, and corn-mill. 
 
 The river Mersey is a rapid stream with numerous falls 
 for nineteen and one-half miles from " Indian Garden " to 
 Liverpool. A lake system of fifty square miles supplies 
 the river, and when properly developed will make Milton 
 and Liverpool cheap and popular manufacturing centres. 
 
 The canoe trip through the lakes and rivers here- 
 abouts is well worth taking. The grounds of the old 
 fort are now a public park. But the old blockhouse 
 has vanished here as it has from Annapolis, and some 
 forty cannon of early George III. type are used for street 
 corner posts. 
 
 With its lighthouse and cannon, turf, seats, and shade, 
 and magnificent outlook over the harbour, Liverpool Fort 
 is a most agreeable lounging place, and a romantic terminus 
 to Liverpool's street of bright shops, public buildings, and 
 neat residences. The Fort was actually captured in 1780 
 by an unexpected night attack led by a Yankee named 
 Benjamin Cole. " The townsmen," one reads, " were 
 inclined to think resistance useless, but Colonel Simeon 
 Perkins (the * man of the time ' in Liverpool) arranged 
 for the capture of Cole on his way through the town, 
 and with him safely in hand was enabled to dictate to 
 the enemy most favourable terms of redress, capitulation, 
 and retreat. So ended the Siege of Liverpool" 
 
 i
 
 1 30 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Close to the Fort is a picturesque little cove, where 
 shipbuilding is still carried on, and where a group of 
 old houses still remain, including the Customs House. 
 
 To-day, besides the fishery, the great resource of the 
 town is the sawing and export of timber, surrounded as 
 it is by almost inexhaustible forests. Large quantities of 
 wood-pulp are also produced here. Altogether Liverpool 
 to-day is a busy, pleasant little town, whose prosperity and 
 whose prospects have been vastly increased by the advent 
 of the Halifax and South- Western Railway a few years ago. 
 
 Connected with the lumber industry, the prominence 
 now attained by pulp-wood and wood-pulp deserves a 
 word. Owing to the increased demand made by the 
 paper mills of America for raw materials, and the decreas- 
 ing supply of home-grown wood, for the year ending 
 3<Dth June 1910, the States imported from Canada 
 897,226 cords of pulp-wood, valued at $5,660,542.00, 
 and of mechanical, chemical, bleached, and unbleached 
 wood-pulp to the value of $4,224,500.00, an importation 
 from Canada of pulp-wood and wood-pulp of $9,885,042.00, 
 as against a total importation of $5000 in 1880. 
 
 The total quantity of pulp-wood consumed by the 
 253 paper mills of the States during 1910 was 4,002,000 
 cords, valued at $34,478,000.00, of which, according to 
 the figures given above, Canada furnished more than 
 one-fifth in quantity and one-sixth in value. 
 
 Nova Scotia, as well as New Brunswick, possesses large 
 pulp-wood areas and excellent water-power ; would it not 
 seem that an attractive field was open either to Nova 
 Scotian or British capitalists ?
 
 TIMBER TRADE 131 
 
 The wise policy of the Government in withdrawing 
 from sale the remaining Crown Lands of the Province, 
 estimated at about one and one half millions of acres, 
 should, under proper regulations, give the country a 
 valuable reserve. 1 
 
 In addition to these shipments, which were composed 
 largely of deal, there were exports of laths, shingles, piling, 
 and some square timber hardwood, together with the 
 quantity used locally, which of course largely augmented 
 the value of the total export. 
 
 Spruce is the staple lumber tree of Nova Scotia. Prices 
 for this wood have not declined or indeed fluctuated during 
 the last two years as much as some other native woods, 
 notably hemlock and pine. 
 
 1 The following table shows the exports of lumber from the ports of 
 Nova Scotia in 1911 : 
 
 Feet. 
 
 Halifax . . . 43,000,000 
 
 Lunenburg 48,269,113 
 
 Bear River 3,500,000 
 
 Pugwash 19,204,020 
 
 Liverpool 5,954,000 
 
 Maitland 5,147,744 
 
 Pictou 12,227,164 
 
 Sherbrooke 4,500,000 
 
 Weymouth 12,000,000 
 
 Ingram Docks 9,000,000 
 
 Yarmouth 13,597,452 
 
 Colchester 70,000,000 
 
 Windsor 12,000,000 
 
 Hantsport 4,500,000 
 
 Walton 1,200,000 
 
 Cheverie ......... 200,000 
 
 Parrsboro 32,000,000 
 
 Total .... 214,368,493
 
 i 3 2 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 An addition to the output of spruce, hemlock, and pine, 
 which figures so largely as the product of the portable and 
 stationary mills for export, consists in the cutting of " ton- 
 timber" hardwoods for English and South American 
 markets, of which about 12,000 tons are taken out of 
 Colchester woods. This variety is cut and hewed square 
 with axes, and is brought to the shipping points when 
 sledging is good. 
 
 Very little hardwood finds its way to the sawmills for 
 export as deals or planks. Then there is the cutting of 
 poplar for the manufacture of excelsior ; of birch and ash, 
 and beech and elm, for the manufacture of chairs and 
 furniture ; of yellow birch for the manufacture of spring- 
 bed frames and peg wood ; and of white birch for the 
 making of spool wood, the latter being produced mostly in 
 the Stewiackes. Finally, there is a cut of juniper and 
 hackmatack, and other woods of no mean proportions used 
 for railway ties and pit props.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BRIDGEWATER AND LUNENBURG 
 
 YET the Blue-nose is first and foremost a fisherman. 
 
 When all is said of Nova Scotia's varied resources of 
 farm and factory, and mine and forest, there is still to be told 
 the tale garnished with adventure of the great and abiding 
 interest of the peninsula and the island the Nova Scotian 
 fisheries. Of a total population of half a million souls in 
 this province, over 40,000 men are engaged in the fisheries. 
 This will seem a stupendous and utterly unreasonable pro- 
 portion until I explain that the occupations of fisherman 
 and farmer, fisherman and forester, even fisherman and 
 miner, overlap in many districts, giving rise to a curious 
 combination of characteristics in the same individual, which 
 I had previously noticed amongst the fishermen-miners- 
 farmers of Newfoundland. 
 
 The sea-coast of the Maritime Provinces from the Bay 
 of Fundy to the strait of Belle Isle measures some 5600 
 miles, or about double that of the United Kingdom. In 
 this magnificent fishing field the Nova Scotian is lord para- 
 mount, although others have at various times sought to 
 share them with him. 
 
 The total fisheries of Canada, the largest in the world, 
 are valued to-day at $25,500,000, of which Nova Scotia's 
 share is $7,632,330, or nearly one-third of the whole. All 
 
 133
 
 134 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 along this extensive sea-coast, in the bays, and harbours, and 
 inlets from Cape North to Cape Sable, for generations boats 
 have been putting out, manned by hardy stalwart men who 
 go to brave the perils of the deep, and there are many perils 
 in these latitudes, besides much cold and privation, in order 
 to reap a harvest of cod, lobster, mackerel, haddock, and 
 herring. 1 
 
 Besides manning their own craft, the Nova Scotians, like 
 the Newfoundlander, mans the vessels of other countries, 
 especially American and British. The bulk of the pro- 
 duct goes to America, although for nearly a century an 
 important market has been found in the West Indies and 
 South America, while the trade with Great Britain, France, 
 Italy, Germany, and Portugal is increasing annually. 
 
 1 The following table shows the number of men reported as employed 
 in the fisheries of Nova Scotia, and the value of boats and fishing material 
 for the year 1910-11 : 
 
 Number. Value. 
 
 Vessels (tons, 19,657) .... 630 $891,710 
 
 Boats (gasolene) 1,466 ) 
 
 Boats (sail) 12,655} 7BI '' 3 
 
 Tugs and smacks 164 1 93, 7 30 
 
 Gill nets (1,682,522 fathoms) ... ... 555,374 
 
 Seines (170,809 fathoms) . . . . ... 170,375 
 
 Trap and smelt nets 1,186 119,276 
 
 Weirs 144 25,145 
 
 Trawls 13,763 133.848 
 
 Hand lines 43,9 3 2 ,936 
 
 Lobster canneries 214 226,780 
 
 Lobster traps 720,577 606,851 
 
 Freezers and ice houses .... 345 321,040 
 
 Smoke and fish houses .... 5,705 488,203 
 
 Piers and wharves 2,326 787,100 
 
 Total . . .$5,334,083
 
 THE BANK FISHERY 135 
 
 Under the proposed Reciprocity Agreement with the 
 United States the fishing industry of the Province would 
 have been vitally affected, to Nova Scotia's advantage. 
 
 " I'm off to the Bank fishery 
 From my farm at Port Matoon, 
 Where my little lass awaits me, 
 And I can't get back too soon." 
 
 Schooners of about 100 tons burden carry off the men 
 to the Bank fishery. When they reach the Banks those 
 great marine plateaux frequented by inexhaustible shoals 
 of cod, the fishermen separate into dories, six to ten of 
 which accompany each schooner. From each dory, which 
 is about 15 feet long, two men, six trawls of say, 4000 
 hooks, making a total of about 40,000 hooks to a vessel. 
 Far smaller crafts are in use, however, for the inshore 
 fishery. One can see these boats, of from 20 to 60 
 feet over all, and manned by from two to ten men, at 
 any port, using the dory and trawl, or the hand-line. 
 But the familiar British otter trawl is not seen here at 
 all, and trawls of any description are illegal in Canadian 
 territorial waters. 
 
 Mackerel and herring are captured in nets moored near 
 the shore. One sees little of drift-net fishing, although it 
 is occasionally practised. 
 
 In the opinion of fishing experts the herring here- 
 abouts are not only more abundant, but are a larger and 
 better fish than those off the British coasts. Then there 
 is the inland fishery, which yields chiefly smelts, salmon, 
 trout, and eels, large quantities of which are sent in cold
 
 136 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 storage to all parts of Canada and America, a trade which 
 offers great possibilities of expansion. This remark is 
 true of the whole fishery both in the actual catch and 
 in the distribution. Improved methods are wanted, which 
 means that more technical knowledge and more capital 
 are wanted. A more progressive system is already here 
 and there in operation. The employment of gasolene 
 motor boats for inshore fishing makes the fishermen more 
 independent of the weather, and hundreds of their boats 
 may now be seen off the south-west shore. 
 
 Enormous numbers of lobsters are caught and canned, 
 and exported by two hundred and twenty canning factories 
 scattered up and down the coast. Their sale to the 
 packers means the distribution of a great deal of cash 
 among the fishermen of Western Nova Scotia, frequently 
 running into hundreds of thousands of dollars. But in 
 spite of all that is done, I find a general feeling that much 
 more could be done in the way of catching and curing 
 according to those scientific principles which prevail in 
 Norway and Denmark, and also in the shipments of living 
 lobsters to the States. 
 
 Few are aware that only in these Maritime Provinces 
 of Canada and Newfoundland are lobsters procurable in 
 sufficient quantities to make canning profitable. The 
 catches of Norway, Scotland, Ireland, and America are 
 not sufficient to supply the demands of the consumers 
 for lobsters in the shell. Unhappily it cannot be said 
 that the lobster industry as regards hatching, conservation, 
 and canning is placed here on a very sound footing. In 
 fact, unless a new style is adopted the lobster will be a 
 diminishing crustacean.
 
 LOBSTERS AND OYSTERS 137 
 
 A year or two ago at Ottawa, a Fishery Committee of 
 the House of Commons was formed, and fishermen and 
 packers from various sections of Nova Scotia, New Bruns- 
 wick, and Prince Edward Island were summoned to Ottawa 
 to give evidence, but little practical resulted. 
 
 While the catch of lobsters in the United States is not 
 more than ten per cent, of the total catch of the world 
 (Canada enjoys a catch fully eight times as great), the 
 Fisheries Department of the States of Maine and Massa- 
 chusetts have spent a very considerable sum in an effort 
 to restore and restock their depleted waters with lobsters. 
 The Dominion Marine and Fisheries Department, which is 
 responsible for the care of the lobster fishery, have not ex- 
 pended nearly as much as they have in these two American 
 States. 
 
 This condition ought to be changed if the permanence 
 of a most productive branch of the fisheries of Eastern 
 Canada is to be guaranteed. 
 
 Happily, the lobster catch last year was very success- 
 ful to the fishermen and packers alike, and by the present 
 regulations, whereby during a long close season the fishing 
 is absolutely prohibited, the lobsters are protected and 
 given a reasonable opportunity of natural propagation. 
 
 The oyster is little cultivated, and yet it is claimed 
 for Nova Scotia that she has a larger cultivable area for 
 oyster beds than many districts where it is a source of great 
 profit, as for instance, Maryland, where as much as ten 
 million bushels of bivalves have been extracted. Here a 
 few thousand bushels are all that is forthcoming. 
 
 The truth is, the fisheries of Nova Scotia are only 
 partially occupied, and are an inviting field for the invest-
 
 138 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 ment of capital in enterprising hands. With its unexcelled 
 position, with a population of as hardy and courageous 
 men as are to be found anywhere, there is no reason why 
 Nova Scotia in its fisheries should not rank even higher 
 in point of production than it does now. 
 
 Speaking of oysters suggests pearls, and I was not 
 surprised to hear that in the scallop oysters on these 
 shores are found pearls of a fair quality. Numbers of 
 the scallops may be found in Chester Basin, Lunenberg 
 country, which, if collected in the right season, might be 
 valuable and give employment to many in collecting and 
 working. Several samples of pearl I saw seemed to me 
 to compare favourably with those imported from abroad, 
 and no doubt the scallop contains many valuable gems. 
 Who knows, therefore, but that the pearl fishery may 
 yet be carried on here in Nova Scotia as profitably as 
 it is elsewhere ? 
 
 Bridgewater is one of the most perfect towns in New 
 Scotland, beautifully situated on a river bluff, picturesquely 
 environed, well built, with an enterprising corporate spirit, 
 and inhabited by a cheerful, unpretending people. It is 
 within easy reach of both sea and forest, and it is the 
 headquarters of both the railway and of a large timber- 
 carrying fleet, which visits many of the distant ports of 
 the world. I shall not easily forget the view that burst 
 upon me as I set foot upon the first span of the bridge 
 that crosses the La Hgve River coming from the railway 
 station, the tree-clad banks to right and left, with the 
 verdure fading into the grey purple of the distant clouds, 
 the white sails of the ships shot with sunlight, the broad, 
 clear, swift-flowing stream; and, facing me, the colour and
 
 BRIDGEWATER 139 
 
 brightness of the town itself, three or four streets running 
 parallel to the river, the first containing all the shops, each 
 street rising high above the other, and the last on the sky- 
 line. There was movement, but no hurry. Pretty girls, 
 carrying school-books, moved along, dissolved in rippling 
 laughter. Teams drawn by great red oxen coursed leisurely 
 to and fro, directed by cheerful teamsters. And above all 
 the intensely yellow sunlight poured down, making rich 
 heaps of shadow ; and the air, redolent of the pine groves, 
 pressed southward in warm and scented volumes, seek- 
 ing the sea. It was good. 
 
 My luggage went on by omnibus, and I made way to 
 Clark's Hotel on foot. Here is an inn after my heart 
 after the heart of any traveller. Perched high on the Street 
 of the Third Parallel, it was once a commodious private 
 dwelling, with steep steps and the usual verandah in front. 
 A hedge of English hawthorn encircles it, and high planes 
 and maples cast their shade about lawn and verandah. 
 Within, an air of cosiness pervades ; all is spotlessly 
 clean, and trim and active maid-servants cheerfully attend 
 to the traveller's needs. The food is good of its kind and 
 tastefully prepared, and it needs but a little to make this 
 inn perfect, and that little will never be supplied until the 
 travellers themselves learn how to behave themselves 
 to learn, for instance, that in order to smoke it is not 
 necessary to excrete saliva, and that one of the uses of a 
 hotel is not that of a lounging-place for local idlers. 
 These latter are the pests of hotels throughout the Con- 
 tinent, making an inn occasionally insufferable for the real 
 sojourner. 
 
 Bridgewater has a population of over 3000, and is
 
 140 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 steadily increasing in size and importance. It is the centre 
 of trade for a fertile farming county, and has considerable 
 manufacturing and commercial interests ; well-built public 
 buildings, particularly its brown stone Post Office and 
 Customs House, and several golf, tennis, and yachting 
 clubs. But Bridgewater will always be memorable to me 
 because of what was the most interesting incident of my 
 travels through Nova Scotia. It was here I met the 
 members of the Royal Commission appointed at Ottawa to 
 inquire into Technical Education. I should like particularly 
 to direct the attention of the British reader to this fact a 
 Royal Commission appointed by His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment, not at London, but at Ottawa. How this British 
 Empire of ours has marched ! Would not Haliburton and 
 Howe have pinched themselves to make sure they were 
 awake upon hearing His Majesty's Commission (duly 
 drawn up by His Majesty's Canadian Ministers) read, 
 beginning " George the Fifth, by the Grace of God," 
 &c. It only needed " King of Canada, Newfoundland, 
 and the West Indies " more clearly to adumbrate the 
 idea. Here was King George III.'s great-grandson pro- 
 nouncing his Sovereign will and pleasure upon the advice 
 of His Majesty's constitutional advisers, not Mr. Asquith, 
 Sir Edward Grey, and Mr. Lloyd George, but the members 
 of the Cabinet at Ottawa. A group of gentlemen constitut- 
 ing this Royal Commission sat upon the platform. One 
 hailed from Manitoba, two from Ontario, one from Quebec, 
 one from Nova Scotia. Before them witnesses resident in the 
 district were duly sworn, that they would tender the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them
 
 PROFESSOR MACOUN 141 
 
 God ; and forthwith proceeded to give evidence as to the 
 industrial conditions of Bridgewater. 
 
 Towards the close of the proceedings something 
 dramatic happened. A little, old, white-haired, rosy- 
 cheeked man arose and declared modestly that his name 
 was John Macoun, the official botanist of the Dominion 
 of Canada. And people stood and craned their necks, 
 and asked what was it he said, and how it was they had 
 never known this Professor Macoun was in Bridgewater 
 before, and why was it the Mayor and the rest hadn't met 
 him at the railway station with the others and driven him 
 round the town. 
 
 " Where do you reside at present, Professor Macoun ? " 
 
 " At Bridgewater," said the old, rosy-cheeked gentleman. 
 " I have been for some months conducting an investigation 
 into the flora of the district, with a view to ascertaining its 
 botanical possibilities, the arable nature of the soil, and its 
 adaptability to other vegetable production." 
 
 Then, in truth, the folk of Bridgewater stared this time 
 at one another. Here was this man, filling a very important 
 position indeed in an agricultural country like Canada, 
 dwelling quietly in the midst of their small town, not 
 alone, but with his wife and assistants, pursuing his work, 
 gathering his collections of flora, compiling in a specially- 
 rented building his extensive hortus siccus, and not a soul 
 of them the wiser. 
 
 "/ believe in technical education, because it means 
 thoroughness, and thoroughness means that a man knows his 
 work. I am the man who forty years ago told the Canadian 
 Government that wheat would grow in the North West.
 
 142 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Every one was against me. I was threatened and reviled, 
 and held up to ridicule. All the forces of -prejudice and tra- 
 dition were brought to bear upon my official report. I was 
 told I was mad. But I held in this right hand earth whose 
 constituent particles I recognised. I had studied them grain 
 by grain, and I knew if they would produce wheat in Ontario, 
 they would yield wheat in the Red River country ; and I said 
 that that country, where not a single bushel of wheat was grown, 
 would produce fifty million bushels a year. Last year it pro- 
 duced a hundred millions, and I thank God I have lived 
 to see it. And if you Nova Scotians would only listen and 
 have equal faith in your own country, it could be made ten 
 times richer and more fruitful than it is to-day." 
 
 That is all. The Professor sat down. Anything that 
 happened after that it would be bathos to describe. 
 
 Lunenburg, on the south shore, was settled in 1751 by 
 Hanoverian immigrants, and still largely retains its German 
 character. The settlement was under the protection of 
 King George II., who was also ruler of Hanover. The old 
 German speech has not yet died out amongst them, although 
 I heard one inhabitant deploring that the last fount of 
 German type had been melted down, and for some years no 
 German periodical had been printed. Famous fishermen 
 are the Lunenburg folk ; there is much lumbering, and 
 some farming. One notices a reminder of old Germany in 
 the ox-teams, curiously yoked together by the horns. 
 
 Mahone was once a popular rendezvous for pirates. 
 Their long crouching crafts were so often harboured there 
 that the early French settlers dubbed the bay " Mahonne," 
 an old French term for a low-lying boat. Later the name
 
 CHESTER 143 
 
 was anglicised, and extended to the town which snuggles 
 at the head of the bay, half-hidden by encircling hills. 
 From the tops of the hills the old-time beacons blazed a 
 message of distress or a flash of warning to the neighbouring 
 settlements when the Indians trod the war trail. 
 
 Now the beacon sites are vantage points for viewing the 
 glorious stretch of island-studded bay below. Shaggy, un- 
 combed pines surmount the hillsides, and charge the air 
 with revivifying odour. 
 
 Chester is a popular summer resort for Haligonians, 
 whose charmingly wooded hills, now so redolent of peace, 
 were once the rendezvous of pirates ; notably, so tradition 
 says, of that estimable scoundrel, Captain Kyd. The Oak 
 Island Money Pit, within easy sighting distance of the 
 Hackmatack Inn porch, is a tantalising memorial of piracy 
 on the Spanish Main. A million dollars have been spent 
 by joint stock companies trying to dam out the Atlantic 
 and pump the Pit dry ; but the treasure is still uncovered, 
 and doubtless will always be hidden a source of mystery 
 and romance to many visitors. The bay, flanked by long, 
 sprawling hills, and protected at its mouth by a barrier of 
 rocky islands, is a beautiful stretch of water, twenty miles 
 long and twelve miles wide. Both bay and shoreline are 
 littered with points of interest. The names alone are a 
 delight Oak Island, Murderer's Point, Heckman's Island, 
 Hobson's Nose, The Ovens, Mount Aspogotan, Ironbound 
 Island, and The Tancooks. How R. L. Stevenson would 
 have revelled in them !
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ON THE GOVERNMENT'S FARM 
 
 To me Truro had a twofold interest. The first was that 
 it was the chief scene of the propaganda of that extra- 
 ordinary Irishman, Colonel M'Nutt, who figures so largely 
 in that Romance of Emigration which some day I am 
 going to write ; and it is the theatre of that admirable new 
 institution, new, so far as New Scotland is concerned, the 
 Agricultural College and Government Experimental Farm. 
 
 After spending some days on this farm, I make bold 
 to say that, in the hands of the zealous and energetic 
 Professor Gumming, it is the best thing I saw in New 
 Scotland, and, considering everything, one of the most 
 perfect institutions of its kind on earth. 
 
 What a great advantage it is to come late ! You 
 benefit by the mistakes and the achievements of your fore- 
 runners. That is why, to take an instance at random, 
 Budapest in the domain of hospital and urban sanitation is 
 so superior to London. The Hungarians were thousands 
 of miles behind the times a decade or two ago ; when 
 they decided to go ahead they were untrammelled by 
 customs, habits, systems, and expensive old plants. From 
 having nothing at all they acquired the best, the latest 
 appliances of science. For generations Nova Scotia has 
 been tinkering at agriculture. The soil of the province 
 
 '44
 
 "AGRICOLA" YOUNG 145 
 
 is so varied that the early pioneers did not know what to 
 make of it. What would suit one part was hopeless in 
 another. Instead of settling down, farmers migrated from 
 one district, from one country to another. Some who sold 
 their farms profited, others, who for want of application 
 and also for want of knowledge, fared worse, until it was 
 difficult for a stranger to ascertain with any sort of pre- 
 cision just what were the agricultural possibilities of the 
 Province. Ninety years ago an enthusiastic agriculturist, 
 John Young, published a remarkable series of letters under 
 the nom de plume of " Agricola," in which he gathered 
 together all the current English ideas on the subject of 
 scientific farming, and earnestly urged their adoption by 
 his fellow-countrymen. These letters of Agricola in book 
 form attracted wide attention. Young did more : he set 
 about the forming and consolidation of agricultural socie- 
 ties throughout Nova Scotia, at which prizes were offered 
 for stock cereals and vegetables, and for a time agriculture 
 undoubtedly benefited. But many causes, external and in- 
 ternal, conspired to render farming in Nova Scotia a far 
 less prosperous undertaking than it deserved to be. The 
 constant exodus of the young men from the farms was a 
 serious handicap ; so was the exclusion of produce from 
 the American markets, the remoteness of some possible 
 markets, and the scantiness of others nearer home. But 
 still the great obstacle to success was want of knowledge 
 and want of method. 
 
 Some twenty-one years ago there was organised in the 
 Province of Nova Scotia an Agricultural School, which 
 achieved some excellent work, but which, owing to the lack 
 
 K
 
 146 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 of equipment, did not make the impression which might 
 have been made had the institution been dealt with in a 
 more generous manner. There was also carried on from 
 the year 1 896 a School of Horticulture at Wolfeville, which, 
 like its sister institution in Truro, was carried on a rather 
 too modest scale. However, after studying the institution 
 at Guelph, and consulting with the professors at that in- 
 stitution, and with Dr. James Robertson, then Dominion 
 Commissioner for Agriculture, the Government of Nova 
 Scotia decided to incorporate these two institutions into one 
 Agricultural College. This institution was formally opened 
 in February 1905, under the principalship of Mr. Melville 
 Cumming, a native of Nova Scotia, and a graduate of 
 Dalhousie University, Halifax, and of the Ontario Agricul- 
 tural College at Guelph. The faculty was composed of the 
 Principal of the old School of Agriculture, the Principal of 
 the School of Horticulture, the Superintendent of the 
 Provincial Government Farm, together with lecturers from 
 the Provincial Normal School, with which institution the 
 College is affiliated. In addition, the service of some of 
 the leading men at Guelph and Ottawa have, from time to 
 time, been secured, especially to assist in the short courses. 
 Beginning with an enrolment in the regular course of 
 fifteen students, and in the short courses of sixty-eight, 
 the College has in these years advanced to an enrolment 
 of seventy-seven in the full course, and three hundred and 
 forty-two students in the short course, and this, it must be 
 remembered, in a constituency scarcely one-tenth larger than 
 that from which the Ontario Agricultural College draws 
 its pupils. While the College is primarily a Nova Scotian
 
 SCIENTIFIC FARMING 147 
 
 institution, yet its doors are thrown open to students from 
 all the Maritime Provinces, the opportunity being taken 
 advantage of by the young farmers of Prince Edward Island 
 and New Brunswick to the extent of sixteen and twenty- 
 one students respectively. It is, moreover, the hope of 
 those who are most interested in the institution that it 
 shall become, in name as well as in fact, the Maritime 
 College of Agriculture. 
 
 The College was purposely located in the same town, 
 Truro, as the Provincial Normal School, in order that the 
 teaching staff at the latter institution might come in 
 contact with the technical teaching of agriculture, and that, 
 in turn, the agricultural students might profit from the 
 literary and scientific teaching of the members of the 
 Normal School faculty. As a further effort at affiliation 
 of the forces of these institutions, for the purpose of im- 
 proving conditions in the rural schools, there is held each 
 summer during the school vacation a School of Science, 
 classes of which are held at the Agricultural College 
 building, the instructors being composed of men from 
 the faculties of these institutions, assisted by some of the 
 leading men engaged in scientific teaching in Canada. The 
 importance of this affiliation can scarcely be overestimated, 
 for, unless the College is in close touch with the rural 
 schools, and unless the scholars at these schools are directed 
 towards the College, neither can prove as effective in better- 
 ing rural conditions as it is desirable for them to be. 
 
 The equipment of the College is much the same, 
 although not as extensive, as is to be seen at Guelph and 
 other centres of agricultural education. However, under
 
 148 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 the conditions described above, it is only natural that the 
 outstanding feature of the institution should be its live 
 stock equipment. In the stables on the College Farm, and, 
 in some cases, in stables in other parts of the Province, but 
 owned by the College, are to be found one of the finest 
 collections of live stock which has been gathered together in 
 any part of the Dominion. There are herds of Holsteins, 
 Ayrshires, Jerseys, Shorthorns, and Herefords, composed of 
 outstanding individuals, and headed by some of the best 
 sires to be found in Canada. The Holstein herd of cows 
 averaged last year 13,500 pounds of milk. 
 
 In the horse stables are to be found animals of famous 
 lineage and splendid specimens of their breed. There are 
 seven pure bred Clydesdale mares, three having been ex- 
 tensive prize-winners in Scotland. The College at present 
 owns three Clydesdale stallions. 
 
 Equal attention has been paid to the selection of swine 
 and poultry, so that, taken altogether, the live stock 
 equipment at the College is such as to afford splendid 
 ideas for the students in attendance, and also to effect 
 improvement in the general character of the stock of the 
 Province. 
 
 " Each Province in Canada," observed Professor Gumming 
 to me, " has its own peculiar agricultural conditions and 
 problems, and before one can pronounce judgment upon 
 the degree of progress which each has made, he must 
 understand the special conditions under which the people 
 have been working." Nova Scotia, as has been said, is a 
 province of varied resources, in the forests, the seas, and the 
 mines. While these various natural resources have added
 
 AT KIXGSPORT. 
 
 "CALLING" A MOOSE.
 
 CONSTANT EMIGRATION 149 
 
 largely to the wealth of the Province, yet their presence 
 cannot be termed an unmitigated blessing. There is a 
 tendency for the people to direct their energies in too many 
 avenues of employment, and a corresponding lack of con- 
 tinuity, especially in methods of agriculture. There are 
 exceptions, for example in the fruit-growing counties and 
 in local areas in various parts, where the people have 
 adhered strictly to agriculture. But there are thousands 
 enrolled in the census as farmers who have little more right 
 to be included in that class than has the porter in an office 
 to be called a lawyer or a doctor. As, however, the forests 
 are increasing, and the pursuit of the sea and mines are 
 becoming more specialised, those who are living on the 
 lands are taking a greater interest in the subject of agri- 
 culture, and are seeking such information which will help 
 them to improve their conditions. 
 
 One great enemy of agriculture in New Scotland is the 
 natural tendency of the farmer's sons to migrate to the 
 south'or the west. The proximity and easy accessibility of 
 Boston and other large American cities was long irresistible, 
 just as London and England allured the youth of Old 
 Scotland. But the trend of western immigration must 
 sometime cease, and life in American cities is proving less 
 lucrative than of yore, the result being a marked tendency 
 on the part of the young men of the Province to devote 
 themselves to farming. 
 
 The type of farming long favoured in Nova Scotia was 
 that which minimised the amount of labour required, except 
 at those seasons of the year when seeds must be sown and 
 harvests reaped. As a consequence, one saw herds of live
 
 150 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 stock, too small in numbers, often of inferior quality, and 
 still more indifferently kept. The selling of hay and oats, 
 and roots of all kinds, was found an easier solution of the 
 difficulties of farming than raising live stock, and the selling 
 of butter, and cream, and milk, beef, eggs, and other animal 
 products. Many an impoverished field and many a run-out 
 farm still greets the traveller, robbed of its virgin wealth of 
 humus, and of the elements of plant food. The cure for 
 this is live stock and live stock alone, and this is the gospel 
 which Professor Gumming is preaching. 
 
 Of course, in the fruit areas of Hants, King's, and 
 Annapolis counties, this want is not so keenly felt. Green 
 crops, like clover, peas, and vetches, are grown and ploughed 
 under to supply humus with which to improve the physical 
 condition, and nitrogen with which to increase the plant 
 food of the soil, on which the apples, and plums, and other 
 fruits are grown. But even here more live stock is a 
 necessity. 
 
 For the development of a high type of agriculture 
 Nova Scotia offers most favourable conditions. About the 
 only drawback, as compared with the inland parts of Canada, 
 is a somewhat protracted spring, a drawback which frequent 
 showers of rain and moist conditions natural to any mari- 
 time province, largely mitigate. Live stock, when properly 
 cared for, flourishes to an unusual degree, and the markets 
 for all kinds of agriculture produce are not only unusually 
 good but easily accessible so easy of access, in fact, as to 
 have oft-times prevented successful co-operation, especially 
 in butter and cheese making. For when a farmer can find 
 within a few miles of his door a population of miners who
 
 DAIRYING AND SHEEP 151 
 
 will buy his products and pay him cash on delivery, he is 
 often discouraged if he has to wait for a little longer to 
 receive his returns from a creamery. The result of this has 
 been to promote private dairying and private marketing of 
 all sorts of produce at the expense of the more desirable, 
 and, in the end, more profitable system of co-operative 
 manufacture and marketing. 
 
 Dairying might well prosper here. Pastures, when pro- 
 perly cared for, are good and well watered, cows do well 
 under the moist, humid conditions which prevail, and 
 should the local market for dairy products ever become 
 over-supplied, no province has easier access to the markets 
 of the outside world. Beef cattle, too, have their place, 
 especially in proximity to the large tracts of inexhaustibly 
 fertile dike marsh lands, lining the headwaters of the 
 Bay of Fundy and its river tributaries. There are also 
 isolated river valleys where cheap pastures afford the means 
 of raising beef at a minimum cost. Sheep find the land 
 most congenial, and when well bred and cared for, the 
 sheep of Nova Scotia will rival those of any other part 
 of Canada. But for more than one reason sheep-raising 
 has not been sufficiently exploited, although according to 
 the census of 1907 it has made more progress during 
 the past half decade than the forty years previously. 
 
 Horses, and swine, and poultry, as might also be expected, 
 have their place in Nova Scotian agriculture, and, under 
 efficient treatment, will give as good an account of 
 themselves as in Ontario or any of the older provinces 
 of Canada. 
 
 In the matter of crops New Scotland is peculiarly
 
 152 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 adapted to the production of hay and roots. The large 
 marsh and interval areas produce heavy crops of hay, and 
 nowhere in America can one see finer fields of turnips 
 than on some of these maritime farms. In a recent 
 bulletin issued by the Department of Agriculture on 
 " Root-Growing in Nova Scotia," there are recorded replies 
 from twenty-five representative farmers living in various 
 parts of the Province, from whose records it appears that 
 the minimum yield of roots per acre for the last year 
 was 600 bushels, with a maximum of 1200 bushels, and 
 an average of 864 bushels. Despite, however, the splendid 
 facilities for growing roots, many farmers, because of the 
 reasons already hinted at, devote little or none of their 
 acreage to this most profitable crop. Although there are 
 exceptions, yet, for the most part, the cereal crops do not 
 flourish to quite the same degree as further inland, and corn, 
 whether grown for ears or ensilage, is generally an uncertain 
 crop. The Federal Department has already in operation 
 an extensive experimental farm, operated for the benefit 
 of the Maritime Provinces, at Nappan, N.S. Truro, 
 labouring under the disadvantage of being outside of the 
 so-called fruit-growing areas, will have its work well supple- 
 mented by the establishment of this station. 
 
 In addition to that which is carried on within the 
 College ground, a strong effort is being made to promote 
 College extension work. Recently one hundred of the 
 leading farmers of the Province, together with repre- 
 sentative men from the adjoining Provinces, co-operated 
 with the College authorities in testing varieties of grain, 
 grown singly and in mixture, and also in testing nitro-
 
 MODEL ORCHARDS 153 
 
 bacteria for various leguminous crops. This latter line of 
 investigation has already been carried on for three years, 
 and has been productive of some striking results. 
 
 An extensive series of institute meetings, addressed 
 by members of the College staff, successful farmers in Nova 
 Scotia, and some of the Ontario men, are regularly carried 
 on. There is a Farmers' Association, which holds a three- 
 days' annual meeting in different parts of the Province, and 
 a Fruit-Growers' Association, which holds regular meetings 
 in the fruit sections of the Province. In addition, each 
 county, with a few exceptions, has a regularly organised 
 County Farmers' Association, whose object it is to promote 
 the educational campaign, and to deliberate upon matters 
 of common interests. 
 
 But perhaps the most aggressive and successful body 
 of organised farmers is constituted in the agricultural 
 societies, of which there are 200, situated all over the 
 Province. Under the auspices of the various agricultural 
 societies and associations of the Province, the various 
 members of the Agricultural College staff lecture and give 
 demonstrations on improved agriculture. Co-operative 
 experiments in crops, methods of cultivation, fertilisation, 
 and soil inoculation are being directed from the College. 
 A series of model orchards, thirty-five in number, have 
 been established in the various counties of the Province, 
 from Cape Breton in the east to Yarmouth in the west, 
 and are under the direct supervision of the horticulturist 
 at the College. Insect and fungus pests, such as the 
 brown-tailed moth, are being studied and kept in control 
 through the efforts of the biologist and other members
 
 154 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 of the College faculty. The principal object for which 
 these agricultural societies exist is the improvement of live 
 stock. Each society keeps from one to sometimes six or 
 more pure-bred bulls. These societies are bonused by the 
 Government to the extent, during the present year, of 
 76 cents for each dollar subscribed by the members of these 
 societies. Now new lines of work are opening up, of which 
 perhaps the most interesting is the campaign which is being 
 organised to encourage the more extensive draining of farm 
 lands. 
 
 Authorities who have studied the matter carefully are 
 convinced that money judiciously invested in the under- 
 drainage of farm lands will return from 15 to 50 per cent. 
 or more per annum on the investment. Many of our 
 own best farmers already know this from experience ; but 
 there are a great many farms in the Province of Nova 
 Scotia sadly in need of drainage, which are to-day yielding 
 unprofitable crops because they have not been drained. 
 With a view to encouraging the under-drainage of these 
 lands, the College, I was told, are about to supply at a 
 nominal cost men who will survey and take levels of fields 
 which it is purposed to drain, and give advice in regard 
 to the most efficient means of doing this. To further 
 facilitate the matter, the College has bought, at the cost of 
 several thousand dollars, the most improved drainage machine 
 that is to-day on the market. The College authorities are 
 constantly on the alert to push forward progressive measures 
 of all kinds. 
 
 During the visit a year or so since of Earl Grey to 
 the Agricultural College, the Hon. Sydney Fisher, then
 
 TRURO THE " foE HOWE FALLS."
 
 LONDONDERRY 155 
 
 Dominion Minister of Agriculture, said that the exhibition 
 of live stock which he saw there was the best he had ever 
 seen at any of the public institutions in the whole Dominion. 
 Mr. Fisher being himself a farmer, and owning one of the 
 best live stock farms in the Province of Quebec, no one in 
 Canada is more competent to pronounce judgment upon 
 such matters. Mr. Fisher further added, " You have taken 
 me entirely by surprise, for although Minister of Agriculture 
 for Canada, and more or less in touch with its agricultural 
 institutions, yet I had not realised that you of the East have 
 been advancing as rapidly as I now observe." 
 
 I find I have said nothing of the flourishing town of 
 Truro itself of its shaded streets and pleasant people. 
 After all, the Government Farm and Agricultural College 
 is its chief title to distinction. 
 
 A few miles from Truro, and at the eastern end of the 
 Cobequid Mountains, are the chief iron deposits of this port 
 of New Scotland. Londonderry reminds us once more of 
 the native town of that ubiquitous pioneer, Colonel M'Nutt, 
 and from this place a branch railway runs to the Acadia 
 mines and iron works. Stages also run to this busy industrial 
 centre and to great village Economy and Five Islands. The 
 Londonderry iron has been pronounced to be almost equal 
 to the Swedish for steel manufacture ; the mines yield both 
 limonite and spathic ores.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 PICTOU AND NEW GLASGOW 
 
 OLD SCOTLAND has no advantage over New Scotland 
 in the matter of coal. My first introduction to Nova 
 Scotia's coal was made at Stellarton, in what are called 
 the Pictou coalfields. Coal has been mined hereabouts for 
 upwards of a century, and one of the very earliest railways 
 on the Continent was that built from the Albion mine to 
 Pictou Landing, six miles away. That was in 1836-39. 
 The promoters of this miniature line of rail showed con- 
 siderable prescience in building it of a width then considered 
 unusual, but which has since come to be the "standard 
 gauge." Stephenson's rival, Hackworth, built the first 
 engine used thereupon for over forty years, and now con- 
 sidered a great curiosity. It was shown at the World's 
 Fair, Chicago, and later at St. Louis. 
 
 About 1825 an English company received, under certain 
 terms from the Crown, the right of working mines and 
 minerals in Nova Scotia, and this company shortly thereafter 
 commenced spirited operations both at Pictou and at Sydney 
 in Cape Breton, restricting themselves to coal-mines and 
 ironworks from imported material. Previously coal came 
 chiefly from surface pits, and was of inferior quality. 
 
 '* The principal shaft," we read in the original prospectus 
 
 156
 
 EARLY COAL-MINING 157 
 
 of the company, " has been sunk to the depth of two 
 hundred and fifty feet below the surface, and steam power 
 has been applied for the usual purposes of draining and of 
 raising minerals. The veins of coal laid open by this pro- 
 cedure are of a quality much superior to those formerly 
 discovered. The coal is overlaid by a decayed blackish 
 shale ; it is of jet-black colour, and contains a large pro- 
 portion of bitumen. Excellent coke is made from it, and 
 for the furnace it is highly esteemed. The Cape Breton coal 
 is preferred for household use on account of its producing 
 less of the white or brown ashes than that of Pictou." 
 
 The lease was granted to the company for sixty years 
 to work all minerals belonging to the Crown, save in such 
 tracks as had already been reserved to others. One of these 
 was then worked by the Annapolis Iron Company, which 
 was in fact the only competitor of the General Mining 
 Association. It was then, eighty years ago, observed that 
 the mining industry was proving of greater apparent benefit 
 to the valley of the East River than upon Pictou Town. 
 " Good roads, increase of settlement, numerous waggons 
 and horses where none were previously kept, and a market 
 well supplied where none formerly existed, are outward and 
 visible signs indicative of the neighbourhood of two hundred 
 well-paid beef-eating and porter-drinking operatives." 
 
 The result being then foreshadowed, New Glasgow and 
 Stellarton sprang into being formidable rivals to Pictou, 
 which, from its marine situation, has been almost side- 
 tracked by the railway. Other mines flourish in these parts, 
 such as the Drummond and Acadia Collieries in Westville, 
 and the Vale Colliery at Thorburn. But the character of
 
 i 5 8 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 the mines is the same here on this side of the Atlantic as 
 that which depressed the soul of John Ruskin and gladdened 
 the heart of Samuel Smiles. 
 
 Stay ! I think this statement required some qualifi- 
 cation. It would be manifestly unfair not to take notice 
 of the system here inaugurated by which so many of the 
 miners nearly all the married ones own their own homes. 
 And there is even an effort, and by the miners themselves, 
 that these homes shall be tasteful within and without, and 
 that each shall have his garden. Nothing has ever struck 
 me so forcibly when perambulating the mining districts of 
 the Black Country of Wales as the indifference with which 
 men, immured for at least a third of their lives in the 
 darksome bowels of the earth, regard the amenities of the 
 home and its surroundings of lawn and flower and vine. 
 More passionately because of their long deprivation would 
 one expect them to cling to the superterrene light and 
 colour of life, and the res pulchra domi. Far otherwise is it, 
 and all the more refreshing to see here a brawny Cornishman 
 hurrying from the pit, and after washing the grime from 
 his face and hands, employ the remaining hour of daylight 
 in rolling his bit of turf and hoeing his patch of flower 
 garden. Will a time come, we wonder, when no human 
 occupation shall be too strenuous, too sordid, for a man to 
 spend his leisured hours in decency and calm. No vain 
 visions have I of pitmen and navvies reading Tennyson in 
 velvet smoking jackets and slippers, or pit foremen in dress 
 clothes sipping port wine ; but I do look forward confidently 
 to the time, in England, when a man may, without remark, 
 boast the domestic virtues and enjoy the higher domestic
 
 If
 
 NEW GLASGOW 159 
 
 comfort, even though he engage in an occupation in which 
 for so many hours a day the wearing of a white shirt, or of 
 any shirt at all, is totally dispensed with. Some steps 
 towards the realisation of this I witnessed with my own 
 eyes at New Glasgow, where a man who had been broiling 
 half-naked before a fiery furnace all day, was at twilight 
 seated in cool, clean raiment, in his own little parlour (very 
 tastefully furnished, too), playing one of Sousa's marches 
 on a pianola ! 
 
 A thriving town is New Glasgow, and very beautiful 
 when viewed from the other side of the East River. Here 
 are coal-mines, iron and steel works, shipbuilding yards, 
 glassworks, and other industries. Here, two miles from 
 the heart of the town, is the headquarters of the Nova 
 Scotia Steel and Iron Company, the pioneer steelworks in 
 Canada, with open-hearth converters, the latest equipped 
 rolling mills, steel hammers, &c., altogether employing 
 800 men. On the way thither I passed a cemetery filled 
 with the tombs of the early settlers, nearly all Highland 
 names, many hailing from Old Glasgow, who would 
 probably be very much astonished and highly gratified 
 to-day at the prosperity and size of the town they founded. 
 
 Mr. Cantley, the able manager, told me something 
 about the operation of the works for three months of the 
 year. Increases had been made in practically every line 
 of work in connection with the company, referring by this 
 to the coal mined, the coal shipped, and outputs in 
 the mills and forges. The increase in the output of 
 ingots from 17,508 tons for the first quarter of the previous 
 year, to 20,372 tons for the corresponding period of
 
 i6o NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 the year following, or an increase of practically 19 per cent. ; 
 an increase in the amount of coal mined of 8 per cent., and 
 of coal shipped 20 per cent. Increases were also recorded 
 in the forge department, steel department, and in fact in 
 practically every department ; in addition to that, the most 
 important feature was that the average nett prices now 
 obtained from steel sales showed an increase of 2.01 dollars 
 per ton. 
 
 As to the steel tonnage now on the books of the 
 company, it amounted to about 15,000 tons, which was 
 all he cared to see on the order sheets of the company 
 for the present until prices had improved. 
 
 The population of New Glasgow is about 6400 souls, 
 and an electric tramway connects the town with Stellarton 
 and Westville. The islands around the town are par- 
 ticularly fine. From Eraser's Mountain, an eminence 
 350 feet high, one may form an excellent idea of the lie 
 of the country round about Pictou and Pictou Islands, 
 the Strait of Canso as far as Cape St. George, the far 
 distant hills of Inverness, even the extremity of Prince 
 Edward Island. To the southward the eye meets the 
 fertile land dotted with churches and settlements, stretch- 
 ing thirty miles away to the mountains of Antigonish. 
 In the foreground courses tortuously the glistening East 
 River on its way to Pictou and Northumberland Strait. 
 
 The town of Pictou is situate upon the north side of 
 a capacious harbour, into which three rivers empty, the 
 harbour's mouth being three miles from the town. It is 
 certainly very much in its disfavour that in winter the 
 basin is closed by ice and is therefore inaccessible between
 
 SHIPLOADS OF HIGHLANDERS 161 
 
 December and April. Pictou was once the second town 
 in the Province, to-day it has been left far behind ; yet 
 it enjoys a peculiar old-world character of its own, and 
 is the most Scottish town in all New Scotland. In this 
 district the French had made certain settlements before 
 the Peace of 1763. On the conquest of New France 
 these were deserted, and their farms were again overgrown 
 with forest. In 1765 one Doctor Weatherspoon became 
 the leading spirit of the Philadelphia Company, and, ob- 
 taining an extensive grant in the Pictou district, sent hither 
 a number of Maryland families. By way of bounty each of 
 these received a farm-lot, and a supply of provisions. 
 
 Following these came thirty families from the Scottish 
 Highlands, who were landed here in the good ship Hector, 
 late in 1773, without sufficient food to carry them through 
 the winter, with the natural result that they nearly starved, 
 many making their way across the forest primeval to the 
 Basin of Minas for assistance. But the settlement struggled 
 on ; it was later joined by further families from Dumfries, 
 and gained a great addition to its numbers in 1784, after 
 the American Revolution, by the immigration of many 
 disbanded troopers, who, however, being rather wild and 
 dissolute, greatly shocked the simple-minded, God-fearing 
 pioneers. Not until 1786 did the first pastor, Dr. M'Gregor, 
 arrive to administer to the flock and to preach the Gospel 
 in Gaelic. In the decade following several other ministers 
 arrived at Pictou and the district put forth a great store of 
 grain and godliness. More shiploads of Highlanders landed 
 in Pictou Harbour, and an Academy was founded, which 
 flourishes to this day. But the corner-stone of the first house 
 
 L
 
 i6z NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 in Pictou town was not laid until 1789. Once started the 
 growth to a village and then to a town was rapid. It became 
 the resort of coasting vessels from all parts of the Gulf 
 of St. Lawrence, and the quantity of oil and fish brought 
 thither annually being large, the exports to the West Indies 
 increased proportionately. More than a century ago at 
 least 100 ships left Pictou loaded with timber for Great 
 Britain, worth, together with other exports, ; 100,000. 
 Houses of well-to-do merchants went up houses of stone 
 which are as staunch to-day as the day they were built. 
 " The air of the place," wrote a traveller nearly ninety years 
 ago, " strikes a stranger's eye as peculiarly Scotch. Keen- 
 looking fellows in bob-tailed coats, a la Joseph, of many 
 colours, stand in knots about the streets discussing in broad 
 Scotch or pure Gaelic the passing topics of the day ; while 
 in the distance, a long scarlet robe floating gaudily in the 
 wind, as if in mockery of the sedate air of the student who 
 bears it, carries us back to the classic precincts of Aberdeen 
 or Glasgow. The Academy, to which these students to 
 the number of about fifteen belong, is an ordinary wooden 
 building neatly painted outside, but not yet finished within, 
 and contains nothing remarkable if we except the learned 
 professor and his little museum consisting (chiefly) of 
 native animals." 
 
 At the northern and eastern parts of the town are 
 suburban residences with spacious grounds enclosed with 
 hedges of English hawthorn, from whence a commanding 
 view can be had of the Straits of Northumberland and the 
 blue waves of the great St. Lawrence Gulf. 
 
 On clear days the shores of Prince Edward's Island are
 
 PICTOU TRAITS 163 
 
 distinctly visible ; and out beyond the harbour light, Cape 
 St. George and the distant outline of Cape Breton's rocky 
 coast can be seen jutting out into the wide Atlantic. 
 
 Many years ago a dreadful catastrophe happened to a 
 small mail steamer, the Fairy Queen, plying between Pictou 
 and Prince Edward Island. Through the captain's careless- 
 ness she sprang a leak and went to the bottom. The 
 captain and the crew succeeded in escaping to Pictou in 
 the boats, which were spacious enough to have held all on 
 board. On landing they related a tale of the disaster, 
 believing that no human voice would ever reveal the true 
 story of their cowardice and cruelty. It chanced, however, 
 that although many perished, including a promising British 
 officer and five young ladies, one of whom was bound for 
 England to be married, a few passengers floated off on the 
 upper deck and ultimately, after many hardships, reached 
 land in safety. Along the coast they struggled to Pictou, 
 there to raise a voice from the dead to strike terror and 
 remorse into the hearts of the cowardly captain and crew. 
 The captain was arrested for manslaughter, but, although 
 the popular wrath was great, managed to escape the punish- 
 ment he merited. 
 
 As time wore on in Pictou the Highland bonnet, slouch- 
 ing like a night-cap on the heads of the first generation of 
 settlers, disappeared, to give place to native straw in summer 
 and fur in winter. But the kilts, banned in the old land, 
 sprang up at clan gatherings, and the bagpipes and the 
 Highland ballads and Highland spirit are in vogue to this 
 day. 
 
 The morning was warm and balmy as I strode along the
 
 !6 4 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 harbour front, past the cottages and villas of wood and stone, 
 to a point of land called the Battery at Pictou. Several 
 mounted cannon were pointing seaward, and a weather- 
 beaten man, with his back towards me, shaded his eyes as 
 he gazed intently in the same direction. When he became 
 aware of my presence, he turned and bade me good 
 morning. "Waiting for my molasses ship from Jamaica," 
 he said, jerking his thumb outward. " I thought I saw her 
 in the offing, but I guess I was mistaken." 
 
 We fell to talking about fish, and molasses, and mining. 
 He had been interested in a mine in Newfoundland, and 
 knew something of the ways of Yankee company promoters. 
 He had speculated in many things, but found West Indian 
 produce safest. 
 
 " Do you see that building across there with the tall 
 chimney and the wharves in front of it, and the rails running 
 down to the wharves ? " 
 
 I said I did. 
 
 " Would it surprise you if you found that chimney built 
 of rubble, with no outlet top or bottom ? " 
 
 I said it would surprise me very much indeed. 
 
 " I suppose it would astonish you also to know that only 
 one ship had ever been at that wharf, and no engine or truck 
 on that railway, and no men ever at work in that swelter ? " 
 
 When I had duly satisfied my companion that these 
 things stood in need of some explanation, he volunteered 
 one. 
 
 " That yonder's the relics of the Pictou Copper and 
 General Mining Company, Limited capital, Lord knows 
 how many thousands of pounds ! When I was in England
 
 A DUMMY COPPER-MINE 165 
 
 they told me that for these cinematograph exhibitions they 
 get up sample fires, imitation explosions, intentional railway 
 collisions, and collapse old buildings merely on purpose to 
 photograph 'em. Well, that there's a dummy copper-mine, 
 got up on purpose to photograph, and I'm bound to say the 
 photograph looked darn well in the prospectus. There it 
 all was, and nobody who saw it could get away from it 
 engine puffing away on the rails, hired for a day from the 
 Inter-Colonial Railway ; smoke pouring out of the chimney 
 they had lit a bushel of brown paper on top ; 'schooner at 
 the wharf, also hired for the occasion and dang me, sir, 
 there never was a more realistic thing ! The capital was 
 raised in no time. People here in Pictou, who weren't in 
 the secret, expected all manner of things. Then the Boston 
 promoters lit out for home, and they ain't been seen or heard 
 of since. There's their dummy establishment I guess you 
 could buy it for a hundred pounds and there are a lot 
 of people somewhere, in some corner of the earth, who, 
 when they hear the very name Pictou, turn pale and grind 
 their teeth." 
 
 I could not refrain from inquiring whether this was an 
 incident of frequent occurrence. 
 
 " I know where it's happened before and since. Lord 
 bless you, these here Maritime Provinces, including Gaspe", 
 are a perfect hunting-ground for that sort of thing. Now, 
 down at Chignecto . . ." 
 
 But it is needless to retail all the ensuing conversation, 
 or the instances with which my friend on the Battery at Pictou 
 illustrated it. It suffices to say that every wild-cat scheme 
 engineered by astute and unprincipled financiers from across
 
 166 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 the border, damages to the extent of its operation, multiplied 
 by ten, the good name and the prospects of New Scotland. 
 All should be alert to inquire into the bona fides of all schemes 
 ostensibly directed to the exploiting of their locality, because 
 the failure of such is certain to redound to that locality's, 
 nay, the whole Province's, disadvantage. 
 
 The best house in Pictou perhaps the best-built private 
 one in New Scotland is Norway House, which, together 
 with 200 acres of farm land adjoining, is the property 
 of Lord Strathcona. Seventy or eighty years ago it was 
 built of stone brought from Scotland, and, as I mention 
 elsewhere, is an excellent specimen of the kind of house 
 that is popular with Canadian insurance companies. I only 
 wish that Lord Strathcona could be induced to work this 
 farm, instead of allowing it to lie fallow, if only because it 
 would in active able hands be an effective advertisement for 
 the agricultural possibilities of this part of New Scotland. 
 
 The town is the seat of Pictou Academy, which deserves 
 a passing mention. The academy was established for the 
 purpose of affording to the children of Dissenters, excluded 
 from the honours of King's College (Windsor), those literary 
 and scientific requirements which might qualify them for the 
 learned professions. The corporation consists of twelve 
 trustees, the choice for whom, in virtue of an annual Govern- 
 ment grant, has to be ratified by the governor. They are 
 required to be Presbyterians or members of the Anglican 
 body. As, however, no religious tests are required of the 
 students, the academy is attended by youths of all denomi- 
 nations. The curriculum is a sound one, and from the first 
 Pictou began to send forth what the Province sadly needed,
 
 ANTIGONISH 167 
 
 a race of qualified schoolmasters. Some very eminent 
 Canadian scholars have been educated at Pictou, including 
 Professor Dawson and Principal Grant. 
 
 Forty-three miles by railway from Stellarton is Anti- 
 gonish (accent, please, on the last syllable). A century ago 
 Antigonish was called Dorchester, in honour of Sir Guy 
 Carleton, first Lord Dorchester, Governor of Canada. But 
 the district round about had the Indian name long before 
 that. The first white inhabitants were a few Acadian 
 families at Pomquet, Tracadie, and Au Bouche, whose 
 descendants are still to be found at St. George's Bay. Just 
 after the American Revolution a number of officers and 
 men of the Nova Scotia Regiment, under Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Hierlihy and Major Monk, got grants of land 
 here, and immured themselves for several winters without 
 roads of communication to any other part of the Province. 
 After a dozen seasons or so they were joined by Scottish 
 immigrants from the Isles and the Highlands. They 
 found the agricultural country far superior to any they 
 had ever known, and indeed one of the best in New 
 Scotland. Upon the rearing and export of horses, horned 
 cattle and sheep, grain, butter, and pork, they quickly 
 prospered ; and the production of shingles and stones, when 
 the large timber was exhausted, was carried on upon a large 
 scale. The shire town of Dorchester or Antigonish was 
 described nearly a century ago as " one of the prettiest 
 villages in the eastern section of Nova Scotia, and the 
 neatness and simplicity of its appearance amply com- 
 pensates for the absence of bolder scenery." Judging from 
 that description, I do not think Antigonish has greatly
 
 i68 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 changed. My train brought me there about midnight, 
 and a buggy driven by the landlord himself brought me 
 along a wide street, lined with majestic elms, through 
 whose dark foliage the moon sent spangled rays of light, 
 to a quaint little inn. It is true the quaintness of the 
 inn, architecturally speaking, hardly corresponded with its 
 name : the Queen Hotel (how they love these high-sound- 
 ing titles ! I have a recollection of a certain Chateau 
 Frontenac at Rimouski, P.Q., where they gave me a single 
 sheet to my bed), and the quaintness was in directions rather 
 disconcerting. For instance, when morning came, I was 
 suddenly aroused by the apparition of an uncouth figure 
 in my room. He was in the act of closing a closet door, 
 from which he had apparently just emerged. I sprang up. 
 " What do you want ? " I demanded. 
 
 " Nothing," returned the intruder calmly. 
 
 " But what are you doing in my room ? I locked the 
 door last night." 
 
 " What am I doing in your room ? How else do you 
 think I am going to get out of mine?" He jerked his 
 thumb in the direction of the closet in an aggrieved 
 manner, as if I had meanly suggested his climbing out of 
 the window in order to pursue his daily avocations. All 
 the same, I do not think highly of these peculiar inn- 
 keeping arrangements ; nor do I hold that the employment 
 of the title of Majesty on a long sign -board can altogether 
 atone for their primitive simplicity. 
 
 Before I leave the inn at Antigonish I am tempted 
 to recall another trifling association. A traveller, com- 
 mercial or otherwise, will have noticed throughout Nova
 
 A SHREWISH DAMSEL 169 
 
 Scotia, as in the American States, that all maid-servants 
 perform their functions, with rare exceptions, in a singular 
 spirit of protest, as if they were really not enjoying them- 
 selves in the most becoming and most appropriate of all 
 feminine roles, to wit, the handmaiden of man. It is 
 really most provoking of the dear creatures ! More 
 especially is this uncomfortable spirit manifested towards 
 strangers. My belief is that a too profuse native chivalry 
 is at the bottom of it. You have noticed the scorn and 
 independent air of the British barmaid ? her affability 
 and condescension when addressed by her familiars under 
 the names of "Flossie," "Beryl," or "Sadie?" Well, 
 then, you have put your finger on that which vexes 
 the traveller's soul here. Yet I am bound to say that 
 there were several inns in the Province where I was 
 waited upon with a celerity and good humour which 
 went far to atone for inevitable gastronomic short- 
 comings. 
 
 She was rather a comely wench, was the handmaiden at 
 Antigonish, but sadly spoilt, and a shrewish wrinkle marred 
 her brow. She showed her sense of my coming down late 
 to breakfast by conducting me to a seat where a great 
 draught blew. 
 
 " Ye'll sit there," she said. 
 
 " Oh no, thank you. I will sit here" I rejoined plea- 
 santly, taking a seat by the wall. She paused in angry 
 astonishment. A smile curled her lip. " Oho," she 
 seemed to say to herself, " I'll teach you, my fine gentle- 
 man." I ordered fish. " There's no fish." " Very well. 
 I'll have eggs, boiled in the shell three and a-half minutes,
 
 1 7 o NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 dry toast and coffee." With a toss of her head the damsel 
 slowly disappeared. In something under twenty minutes 
 she re-entered, bringing a tray upon which reposed a large 
 cup of weak tea, a plate of fried eggs, and some very 
 bilious-looking buttered toast. These having been noisily 
 and carelessly deposited before me, I turned over a fresh 
 page of my newspaper and observed nonchalantly, " Please 
 remove all this stuff, will you, and bring me what I 
 ordered boiled eggs, boiled for three and a-half minutes 
 in the shell, coffee, and some dry toast. Look sharp, 
 please." She did look sharp sharp and shrewish, yet 
 with a something almost of consternation withal. I met 
 her glance with a smile. For ten seconds we confronted 
 one another a ludicrous situation. Then, gathering the 
 breakfast back again upon the tray, the poor girl departed. 
 When she reappeared she was quite cheerful the novelty 
 of the experience had, it seemed, taken her fancy. She 
 waited upon me with alacrity. So far from diminishing 
 I multiplied my wants, preferring them with punctilious 
 courtesy. We parted friends, and at luncheon she greeted 
 me with smiles. It is a great pity that the tendency to 
 spoil and pamper girls in menial situations, especially 
 when they are pretty, is not confined to Nova Scotia. It 
 does not make them any the happier, but is, on the con- 
 trary, productive of a good deal of unhappiness and dis- 
 content. A little less familiarity on the part of those 
 served and a little more attention to business on the part 
 of those serving would be far better. Less than a cen- 
 tury ago one could chuck the inn chambermaid under 
 the chin and call her " my dear " without loss of dignity,
 
 THE BISHOP'S FACTOTUM 171 
 
 eliciting only a prim and grateful curtesy. It is different 
 now. 
 
 An attractive little town is Antigonish. The houses, 
 built on low ground, are shaded by trees, while the hills 
 rise on all hands. Here is the seat of the Roman Catholic 
 Bishop of Antigonish, St. Ninian's Cathedral, and St. 
 Francis Xavier College. Chiefly of Highland extraction 
 is the community the names of the chief clans so abound 
 that in the case of the Macdonalds and Frasers it is usual 
 to mention the Christian names or initials to indicate certain 
 leading individuals. One hears of "E. M.," and " J. S.," 
 and " D. C." in common conversation. Gaelic here is 
 still spoken, especially amongst the older folk, and for 
 the benefit of these latter sermons are occasionally 
 preached in the cathedral ; which building is of stone and 
 capable of seating 1200 persons. As I recall the taming 
 of the shrewish maidservant at Antigonish I must not 
 omit mention of my encounter with one whom I was 
 informed was the Episcopal body-servant and factotum. 
 A more astonishingly grotesque individual I have never 
 set eyes upon in my life. Somewhat portly, you only saw 
 fragments of his puffy, white face, owing to a thick growth 
 of beard, which left a space of about two inches between 
 it and a pair of bushy eyebrows. Beard and eyebrows 
 had been red, but were now dyed a startling blue-black, 
 which looked purple in the sunlight. His aspect was truly 
 farouche. 
 
 " Is his lordship at home ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " Will you take him my card ? "
 
 1 72 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 The factotum was engaged in climbing into a buggy. 
 He stared for a second at the proffered card, crossed 
 himself, gathered up his reins, said " Gaw ! " to his steed 
 and drove away, leaving me standing there. I watched 
 him until he had turned the corner, thinking what a weird 
 and beautiful pirate this beady-eyed purple-whiskered 
 joker would have made what a loss to the comic 
 opera stage ! 
 
 " Eh, ye'll no see his reverence the day," murmured an 
 old woman in my ear ; and so I came away. 
 
 The College of Saint Francis Xavier is an educational 
 institution, of which not only Antigonish, but also the 
 whole eastern section of Nova Scotia is greatly proud. 
 Students come hither from nearly all parts of Canada and 
 America. The number in attendance is increasing from 
 year to year, and the accommodation is becoming taxed 
 to such an extent that a further addition to the present 
 commodious building has been found necessary. The 
 number of students at present is over one hundred and 
 fifty. Besides the College, and to some extent affiliated 
 with it, is Mount St. Bernard's Seminary, attended by about 
 seventy young ladies from many of the counties in the 
 Province, and from beyond it. Although both are Roman 
 Catholic, I found that students of all denominations are 
 welcomed, and no better illustration of the broad-minded- 
 ness that prevails is the fact that at least two of the 
 Professors at the College are Protestants. Besides these 
 two institutions of higher education, Antigonish boasts 
 two well equipped " separate schools " of three depart-
 
 LOCHABER LAKE 173 
 
 ments, each conducted by competent and experienced 
 teachers. 
 
 It was prize-giving day amongst the young lady pupils 
 at the seminary, and I had an opportunity of seeing " sweet 
 girl graduates " from all parts of Nova Scotia, and also 
 from the other provinces. I cannot say that they were all 
 very beautiful or very graceful, but oh I am sure that they 
 were very, very good ! And amongst themselves they were 
 very merry, and spoke of their failures in this or that 
 " exam " with resignation. Many of these girls, I was 
 told, were destined to be teachers. 
 
 A Catholic newspaper is published at Antigonish called 
 The Casket. I enjoyed a chat with the editor, a quiet, 
 enlightened man, who aims at " restraint and accuracy," a 
 journalistic motto which one wishes were only more pre- 
 valent. The Casket is an excellent little paper, and a 
 relief from the journalistic horrors elsewhere. 
 
 Eight miles from Antigonish is the mouth of the har- 
 bour, with a wide sandy beach, much used for bathing, and 
 a number of Antigonians have summer cottages there. 
 But the gem of the district is Lochaber Lake, on the road to 
 Sherbrooke, distant some dozen miles. The lake is five miles 
 in length, very narrow, and a pretty road runs along the shore 
 the whole distance. On the whole the roads are capital 
 hereabouts, and the landscape scenery well worth seeing. 
 
 The banks on either side of this lake rise from it 
 abruptly to a considerable height, but without rocky pre- 
 cipices. The water is as clear as a spring, and very deep. 
 It is the last body of water in the district to freeze, and 
 even in January frequently shows a ripple over miles of its
 
 174 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 limpid surface. How often has the Highland emigrant, 
 home-sick for the heather, sat by its banks and dreamt of 
 the old land and the old faces, ere he or she set out for 
 the new land to see " Lochaber no more " ! 
 
 Which reminds me that while at Pictou I was taken 
 to see the shanty of an old Highland woman, once well 
 known to travellers by coach, Nancy Stuart of the Moun- 
 tain. Many stories are still told of Nancy, her sons and 
 her dogs as well as the " Oiche Whaith Chuibh. Bran- 
 nachd luibh" with which she parted from any who had 
 ever been in the Highlands. 
 
 The views throughout the whole of this part of the 
 peninsula are superb. Standing on the top of Sugar- Loaf 
 Mountain, which is close to Antigonish, one obtains a spec- 
 tacle that is well worth climbing to gain. Gaspereau Lake, 
 also close at hand, is situate 500 feet above sea-level, and is 
 a great resort for wild geese and ducks. Here is a famous 
 centre for partridge shooting. These birds, nobody's pre- 
 serves, are often seen in dense coveys close to the railway. 
 
 If we follow the line of this lake the St. Mary's road, 
 we cut right across the eastern end of the peninsula, 
 and come to Sherbrooke, a few miles from the Atlantic, at 
 the mouth of the St. Mary's River. Sherbrooke is the 
 headquarters of a busy fishing community, and there is 
 some gold mining carried on hereabouts. 
 
 Journeying eastward twenty miles by rail from Anti- 
 gonish we reach Tracadie, close to a good harbour, opening 
 into St. George's Bay. There is an Indian reserve in the 
 neighbourhood, but the place is famous for its monastery 
 of Our Lady of Petit Clarivaux, which was founded in 1 820.
 
 TRACADIE MONKS 175 
 
 The members of the community are Cistercian Monks, 
 commonly called Trappists, from their obedience to the 
 rule of La Trappe, the founder of the order. The life of 
 a Trappist is consecrated to prayer, manual labour, and 
 silence. The ordinary hour of rising is two o'clock in the 
 morning, except on Sundays and feast days, when the hour 
 is half-past one. The remainder of the morning, or rather 
 the night, is spent in chanting the offices of the church, in 
 meditation, and other religious duties. The fast is broken 
 by a light meal at 7.30 in the summer, and 11.30 in the 
 winter, the latter season being kept as a Lent. The Monks 
 never eat meat, fish, or eggs, and it is only of recent years 
 that butter has been allowed in the preparation of the 
 vegetable food. The discipline is strict in all other respects, 
 for the Trappist life is the most rigorous of all the 
 monastic orders. Conversation, when necessary, is carried 
 on by signs, except in addressing the abbot. 
 
 Besides their own manual labour, the monks furnish 
 considerable employment to others who assist them in their 
 work, and they are excellent farmers. In their religious 
 duties they seek to make reparation for the sins of the 
 outside world. Despite what seems a severe life they 
 enjoy excellent health, and as a rule live to a great age. 
 All their life, however, is a preparation for death. The 
 burial place is close to the monastery, where it is continually 
 in sight. When a monk dies, he is buried in his habit, 
 uncoffined ; and when the grave is filled in another grave 
 is opened to remind the survivors that one of them must 
 be its tenant in his appointed time. 
 
 There is also a convent of Sisters of Charity at Tracadie.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CAPE BRETON 
 
 THERE are few pseudo-historical anecdotes which stand out 
 more vividly in the pages of history than that which 
 Smollett tells of the eccentric Duke of Newcastle crying 
 out to a courtier, " Cape Breton an island ! Wonderful ! 
 Shew it me on the map. So it is ! Sure enough. My dear 
 sir, you always bring us good news. I must go and tell 
 the King that Cape Breton is an island ! " 
 
 An island indeed is Cape Breton, and such an island a 
 mingling of hill, and dale, and lake, mountain, moor, and 
 tarn rock, and crag, and fell once called L'Isle Royale, and 
 under the flag of the lilies now the most eastern and most 
 northern division of Nova Scotia, and the most Scottish 
 portion of New Scotland. This island is equal to about 
 one-fifth part of the whole Province. 
 
 Sailing out into the unknown territories of a world 
 which if as old as the old was new to them, the early 
 adventurers sought to make their surroundings congenial 
 by a nominal association with the countries, provinces, 
 towns, and villages they had quitted, perhaps for ever. 
 This, the despair of the geographer, is the very poetry of 
 geography. It began with Columbus nay, it began with 
 Leif with his Markland and Vinland, and it continues 
 
 down to the days of Peary, and Shackleton, and Scott. Is 
 
 176
 
 FORMER AUTONOMY 177 
 
 there not something pathetic in the fact of a great bleak 
 headland, locked in an eternal Arctic frost, being named 
 after some fair Devon hamlet or Essex village, where the 
 daring sailor first saw the light or loved a lass ? The 
 Arctic and Antarctic seas are full of such names. 
 
 On the south-west coast of France, near Bayonne, is a 
 Cape Breton, from whence hailed the sixteenth century 
 sailor who first descried the headland here to which he 
 gave that name, probably the oldest in North American 
 geography. When the name of this cape became extended 
 to the whole island is unknown, and as may be guessed from 
 the Duke of Newcastle's remark, many were ignorant of its 
 wider application even in the eighteenth century. 
 
 " The English ministry," wrote Haliburton, " in the 
 time of Mr. Pitt was said to have considered the island 
 worse than useless, and would have rejoiced that Cape 
 Breton had sunk to the depths of the ocean, being con- 
 tinually apprehensive that other Powers might obtain 
 possession and thus establish a post of annoyance, which 
 motive caused the destruction of the fortifications." 
 Utterly neglected, therefore, for a long period after it 
 had passed into our possession, it remained a useless 
 appanage to Nova Scotia until a separate government 
 was established at Sydney, and by the enterprise of Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor Des Barres, Cape Breton began to increase 
 and multiply, and only received a temporary set-back when 
 it was re-annexed to Nova Scotia in 1820. That event, of 
 course, lost the island the coal-mining and excise revenues, 
 and its fees on Crown lands, as well as the salaries of 
 
 officials spent on the island ; and it naturally took some 
 
 M
 
 1 78 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 considerable time to recover from these effects, especially 
 as for thirty years the income had been outlaid upon 
 much needed roads and bridges. 
 
 Cape Breton was long considered strategically the key 
 to Canada. Now, however, that ships of large burden can 
 and do pass by preference through the Straits of Belle Isle, 
 it can no longer be said to command even the Gulf of 
 St. Lawrence. The island is separated from the mainland 
 by the Strait of Canso. At Port Mulgrave a beautiful 
 marine view opened up before me, as the Intercolonial 
 railway train began to transfer its whole huge bulk on 
 board the waiting ferry boat. The distant cliffs and fishing 
 hamlets were bathed in sunlight, the blue waters were alive 
 with multi-coloured anemones ; sails of smacks and schooners 
 darted hither and thither along the surface ; there was a 
 hurrying to and fro of tourists and fishermen on the 
 green-clad shores ; the whole scene was one of picturesque 
 animation. One noted on the mainland the lofty Cape 
 Porcupine, from whose summit, before submarine cables 
 were sunk, the telegraph wires were crossed high in mid-air 
 over the Strait to Plaister Cove. This stretch of wire was 
 then part of the link connecting Europe and North America, 
 and when it broke, as, of course, it frequently did, com- 
 munication was suspended between the Old World and 
 the New. I am told that a pleasing juvenile pastime of 
 the fishermen's children in former times was aiming stones 
 at the wire, probably occasioning from time to time a rude 
 interruption of the speech between two hemispheres. 
 
 Mulgrave has a population of about 1500 souls, and is 
 a centre for bathing and fishing, but its chief institution is,
 
 POINT TUPPER FERRY 179 
 
 of course, the ferry. I have never seen such a perfectly 
 equipped or managed piece of ponderous mechanism. 
 
 The train is divided into two parts and shunted on to 
 the gigantic and specially designed steamer Scotia, which 
 bears the burden without a whimper. Across the Strait we 
 steam, the passengers either descending and walking about 
 the deck, standing clustered on the car platforms, or craning 
 their necks out of the windows in order not to miss the 
 succession of views. In a quarter of an hour or so we are 
 safely landed ; the metal rails on shore join up to the metal 
 rails of the Scotia as true as steel itself, and staring about us 
 we are confronted by Point Tupper. From here a railway 
 runs to Inverness, a district which no visitor to Cape Breton 
 should miss, and which I will advert to later. 
 
 Meanwhile, let us note that for the first thirty miles or 
 so there is nothing in the scenery, and certainly nothing in 
 the very few specimens of the population that meet his eye 
 to attract the traveller's attention. Then come glimpses of 
 interest at Seal and Orange Cove, Mackinnon's Harbour, 
 and certain inlets of the Denys River. Near M'Donald's 
 Gulch, which is crossed by a steel trestle 90 feet high and 
 940 feet long, an occasional birch lodge of the dwindling 
 Micmacs met my eye. 
 
 And Denys River ! How that brings back historical 
 memories of the early French adventurer, the right worthy 
 old Nicholas Denys, Sieur de Fronsac, victim of Charnisay ! 
 
 We open and shut our eyes we are on the verge of 
 dozing, when in a flash the lake of the Golden Arm is upon 
 us. There is no inland sea in the world quite like the 
 famous Bras d'Or, that unique salt flood imprisoned in the
 
 180 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 land, 50 miles long, and taking all shapes bays, inlets, and 
 havens, studded with islands, half-broken by peninsulars 
 never the same, always disclosing fresh beauties and pic- 
 turesque variations. 1 
 
 One is bound to observe that, as regards the Bras d'Or 
 scenery, the body of waters is so vast, and conveys so much 
 the illusion of the ocean itself, that to produce a propor- 
 tionate effect the surrounding land ought to be on a similar 
 scale of grandeur. The alternate low hills and flat shore 
 consequently rob the lake at large of its due effectiveness, 
 although in the vicinity of the arms and inlets, and towards 
 the northward at St. Anne's, there is some compensation in 
 a bolder and more rugged order of scenery. Viewed from 
 the heights of the shore, however, this criticism does not 
 apply, and the tourist's eye is rewarded by scenes which for 
 sheer beauty it would be hard to match throughout the 
 length and breadth of the Continent. 
 
 On one hand are daintily wooded islets, on another a 
 long lagoon, cut off from the lake in rushes. Enclosing it 
 all are the mountains decked in the primeval wood, sloping 
 gradually from the marge or rising sheer and naked until 
 their summit springs into verdure. 
 
 This first portion is the Great Bras d'Or Lake; later 
 on, at Grand Narrows, it becomes still further enclosed, 
 and is called the Little Bras d'Or. Altogether these waters 
 have an area of 450 square miles. Its extremest width is 
 
 1 The name Bras d'Or is doubtless of Spanish origin, as are many other 
 names in this part of the world. There is Mont Real or Montreal, Anti- 
 cuesta or Anticosti ; Puerto Nueva ; Placentia, Basin of Minas, and several 
 Spanish rivers, and probably Le Bras d'Or and Labrador (labourer) have a 
 similar origin.
 
 BRAS D'OR LAKE 181 
 
 less than 20 miles, but owing to its eccentric contour there 
 are places where it is only a mile across. The depth also 
 greatly varies, in the same ratio as the hills here as much 
 as 700 feet, there 50 or 60 feet. 
 
 The Bras d'Or waters have a surface area of 450 
 square miles, and while the width from shore to shore is as 
 much as eighteen miles in one place, there are times when 
 less than a mile separates shore from shore. So, too, the 
 depth varies in somewhat the same ratio as rise the sur- 
 rounding hills. In one part of Little Bras d'Or there is a 
 depth of nearly 700 feet, the depression equalling the height 
 of the surrounding land. Every variety of landscape meets 
 the eye of the delighted stranger, and it is because of this 
 variety that the eye never wearies and the senses are never 
 palled. 
 
 In following the railway the tourist will occasionally 
 see what looks like a shallow pond, a hundred feet or so in 
 diameter. It may surprise him to learn that the bottom is 
 sixty or a hundred feet from the surface. This is a country 
 of heights and depths. At times the train runs through 
 long cuttings where the white plaster rock appears marvel- 
 lously like snowdrifts on each side, to travel for hundreds 
 of yards on high embankments in which the excavated 
 material has been made to bridge a valley. 
 
 After all, the inland sea is but a part of the Atlantic, 
 and an outside sea may sweep its waters into fury. I was 
 told that to cross the Bras d'Or in a gale is not an enviable 
 experience. The direction of the wind makes all the 
 difference. 
 
 Whycocomagh is reached by a drive of seven miles from
 
 1 82 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Orangedale (a name singularly infelicitous), where teams 
 are in waiting on the arrival of express trains. Orangedale 
 is at the head of one of the numerous little arms of the 
 Bras d'Or which are found in this part of the journey, and 
 near at hand are Denys River Basin, and Great and Little 
 Malagawaatchkt (pronounced " Malagawatch "). The latter 
 are two inlets of the great lake at the head of West Bay, on 
 the northern shore. 
 
 Whycocomagh is situated on the basin forming the 
 termination of St. Patrick's Channel, which has its mouth 
 more than twenty miles to the eastward, beyond Baddeck. 
 
 I do not know a more refreshing place for a summer 
 sojourn than Baddeck. This village, long since popular 
 with Americans, and lately of considerable celebrity as an 
 experimental ground for flying machines, occupies the site 
 of an old Indian encampment named Ebedek, called by the 
 French Bedeque. To reach it one leaves the train at lona, 
 and takes the small steamer which connects with the 
 through expresses from Sydney or Halifax, and steams a 
 dozen miles upon the waters of the Bras d'Or. Once 
 out of the Narrows, one emerges into a vast and gleaming 
 expanse of water, dotted with sails, which seem almost 
 shocking in their whiteness, so intense is the sunlight. 
 The place-names hereabout are ultra-Micmac, and as 
 difficult to pronounce at sight as any in Swift. Yonder 
 is Moolasaalahkt Harbour. 
 
 "What does that mean?" I heard a Yankee ask an Indian. 
 
 " Oh, that means Big Harbour," answered the Indian 
 with a grin. 
 
 " Big Harbour ? Then why don't ye say Big Harbour
 
 KING STREET, SHBI.BURNE (THE TOWN OF THE LOYALISTS).
 
 MR. GRAHAM BELL 183 
 
 and have done with it ? " was the indignant surrejoinder ; 
 which seems reasonable. Then three miles later we came 
 to an upstanding and outstanding headland. 
 
 " What's that ? " we asked. 
 
 " That ? " said the captain glibly, " Oh, that's Watcha- 
 buketckt." 
 
 " I don't believe it ! " retorted the Yankee. 
 
 Some visitors entertain the firm opinion that the late 
 Mr. Dudley Warner, an American humorist, who used to 
 stay in this locality, invented a good deal of the nomen- 
 clature. But it is not so ; it is all in Haliburton. 
 
 Apropos of inventors, there is a spacious, well-built 
 mansion on our right, which was long ago built by, and 
 is still the residence of, that Scottish-Canadian genius to 
 whom the world is indebted for that perennially-amazing 
 instrument the telephone. Strange how many thousands, 
 even hundreds of thousands of people in London, who 
 daily see the emblem of a bell on the telephone call-offices 
 connect that emblem with Alexander Graham Bell, the 
 white-haired old gentleman who combines work and play 
 at his summer home here at Ben Bhreagh. Glimpses of 
 outbuildings can be had as the steamer moves along 
 laboratory and workshops ; and on the lake in front of 
 Ben Bhreagh rose the first working aeroplane in Canada, 
 in which Dr. Bell has taken a keen interest. It must have 
 been from some aerial craft that the name of Spectacle 
 Island was given to the insula minor which flanks the 
 harbour of Baddeck. Myself, gazing at it from terra 
 firma or the deck of a small steamer, should never have 
 detected any resemblance to a pair of spectacles.
 
 1 84 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 But here we are at Baddeck, a village of 1500 souls, 
 built on land sloping upwards from the land-locked 
 harbour. There is here yet no large summer caravan- 
 serai such as I had expected to find adorned with 
 spacious verandas, pretty girls, and a Blue Caledonian 
 orchestra ; but there is plenty of accommodation in smaller 
 hotels and boarding houses, and I am bound to say one 
 meets some very nice people in Baddeck. Amongst them 
 was a Harvard professor and his two daughters, and a 
 Brooklyn yachtsman with his two yachts, and it would 
 be hard to say which was the fairer, yacht or damsel ; 
 although as regards the young lady who discussed with 
 me Dr. Wallis Budge's quartos on The Gods of Egypt, none 
 might allege that she was in any sense fast. 
 
 O young lady by the shores of Baddeck, take thy Budge 
 with thee into the wilderness and hook the romping trout, 
 or paddle the gay canoes with Budge under thy shapely 
 arm and the gods of Egypt in thy brain, for in such wise 
 only may any fair Bostonian unbend and frolic with Chloe 
 while offering at the shrine of Minerva ! If it is true that 
 I chaffed thee, why 
 
 "... Nunc ego mitibus 
 Multare quaero tristia, dum mihi 
 Fias recantatis arnica 
 Opprobriis, animumque reddas." 
 
 From Baddeck many in the season set out for the 
 salmon pools of the Margary River, thirty miles distant, 
 over a good road, and to numerous trout lakes much 
 nearer at hand. Sea trout fishing, of course, may be had 
 at Baddeck. All this is Victoria County, a great slab of
 
 GAELIC CUSTOMS 185 
 
 territory which runs straight northward to Cape North and 
 St. Lawrence Bay. 
 
 One returns to lona and Grand Narrows, and entrains for 
 Sydney and the east. I shall not quickly forget the railway 
 station at Grand Narrows on account of a curious custom 
 which prevails at this place. The refreshment room is 
 managed by a gentleman with a large family. All trains 
 stop here twenty minutes for dinner and supper. A 
 sonorous bell is rung. The doors are opened, and a flock 
 of hungry travellers troop in at fifty cents a head to 
 discover, not without chagrin, the restaurateur's family at 
 dinner occupying the best places and already hard at work. 
 
 " It gives 'em an unfair start," complained a commercial 
 traveller to me as he filled his pipe. "By the time I'd 
 located the dining-room, although I sprinted down the 
 platform as hard as I could go, I was sixty seconds too 
 late, and there was only dough-nuts left ! " 
 
 Which reminds one of the swift gastronomic feats which 
 greeted the eyes of Chuzzlewit on his arrival in New York 
 seventy years ago. 
 
 I must not forget to mention that there is held here 
 annually under the broad and open sky, Nature's own great 
 cathedral, a famous Gaelic Communion service. 
 
 Amongst this Gaelic population are counted many 
 bards, inspired men who compose epic ballads as they 
 did centuries ago and do still in the land of Ossian. And 
 the songs of the Highlands, the "Fhir a Ohata," the 
 ' Tamhuil m6r, mac sheann Tamhuil," still float out upon 
 the air ; while the traditions of old Highland feuds or the 
 Jacobite risings of '15 or '45 still linger, eked out by such
 
 186 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 visible memorials as one may see, beside the rude chimney- 
 piece an ancient dirk or a rusty claymore that some long- 
 vanished ancestor had flourished at Culloden or Falkirk. 
 
 But few of the aboriginal red men, the Micmacs, crossed 
 my path in Cape Breton, and those that did were very 
 much civilised. One stalwart specimen who travelled with 
 me to Mira River wore a starched high collar, and was 
 ready to discuss such questions as Home Rule for Ireland 
 with me. To find the Micmacs in any number one must 
 seek out their settlements, chiefly about the Bras d'Or, 
 or attend one of their annual reunions. Years ago the 
 Micmacs professed subjection to the Mohawks, and used 
 to send a deputation in a canoe up the St. Lawrence to 
 pay homage to the chiefs of that tribe in Canada. 
 A century or two ago they were savage warriors in the 
 pay of the French, and gave the English a great deal of 
 trouble in the eastern and south-eastern parts of Cape 
 Breton, and were especially active in scalping any survivors 
 of wrecked vessels which came their way. Nor did they 
 go unrewarded by titles and dignities. There is still, I 
 believe, in existence a parchment commission, signed by 
 Louis XV., conferring on a certain savage the kingship 
 of the tribe, which is preserved by his collateral de- 
 scendants; and there is more than one medal of honour 
 yet worn emanating from the same exalted source. To- 
 day, however, the Cape Breton Micmacs are no longer 
 distinguished for ferocity ; such pleasing mementoes as 
 English scalps have been solemnly burned before the 
 camp-fire; they have proved amenable to religion, they 
 have taken kindly to farming on reserved lands, and the
 
 CHRISTMAS ISLAND 187 
 
 few hundreds who survive seem on the whole very honest, 
 sober, and good-natured. 
 
 It happened at Christmas Island station. There was 
 an island opposite, long and low, with firs at either end, 
 and there were newly-made green-clad furrows upon it. 
 Between it and the mainland was a lagoon formed by a 
 low reef, upon which a number of thrifty cattle grazed 
 peacefully. In the water adjoining was the skeleton of a 
 vessel perhaps some ship which had been driven ashore 
 in a winter storm. In the distance the clouds hung so 
 low as to shut out the base of a range of dark green hills. 
 
 " Why is it called Christmas Island ? " I enquired of 
 the girl, who seemed about eighteen, with a comely face and 
 a profusion of dark chestnut hair. She was dressed in 
 some light muslin or poplin stuff, and upon her feet she 
 wore a pair of something which puzzled me at first, until 
 I recognised in them the saffron-coloured football boots 
 of Northampton. They were several sizes too large for 
 her; and I have no doubt the damsel marvelled much 
 at their shape and colour, but was reconciled by the 
 thought that they were the latest fashion in the Old 
 World " across yonder." 
 
 To my question she replied : 
 
 " Oh, I think it's because they discovered it on Christ- 
 mas Day. The Indians go there to hold their feast every 
 year." 
 
 We strolled together to a small cottage marked " Post 
 Office." 
 
 " I am waiting for the mail to be sorted," volunteered 
 my companion
 
 1 88 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 "You expect a letter?" I asked. 
 
 She blushed and nodded. 
 
 " Is he far away ? " 
 
 She answered : " Mother and me are always * expecting 
 letters.' You see, I have two brothers in the steel works at 
 Sydney, another out in Manitoba, and father's mostly away 
 fishing." 
 
 " And he ? " I persisted. 
 
 Oh, he ? " She laughed. " Well, I don't get any 
 letters from him. He's a brakeman on the Intercolonial, 
 and I can see him every day if I like. I've written a piece 
 for a prize poetry competition in a Boston paper, and I'm 
 wonderin' if I'll get my five dollars or if it's only a snide" 
 
 One other scene of a different kind I should like to give, 
 because it will always live in my memory. It was of an 
 aged, yet stalwart Highlander, who in early youth had 
 migrated to the new Inverness across the ocean. I watched 
 him as he sat by the roadside with his little granddaughter 
 on his knee ; and she told me afterwards he was singing to 
 her (as he often did) a little Gaelic song he had sung sixty 
 odd years ago over the grave of his mother and his first 
 sweetheart, which he had dug with his own hands. It was 
 a year of famine in Cape Breton, but he had not lost 
 courage. At first he had hardly missed the heather, " but 
 now grandfather's hopin' to see the heather again across 
 yonder."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SYDNEYS 
 
 "I SUPPOSE you know the Sydneys?" was one of the 
 questions addressed to me by a charming lady during 
 my sojourn in Halifax. 
 
 " No," I replied, as visions of various individuals from 
 Sir Algernon Sidney to Mr. Albert Sidney floated in my 
 mind, only to be rejected as inappropriate. " I can't say 
 that I do. Who are they ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't mean people, but the towns the places. 
 Sydney, North Sydney, East Sydney, Sydney Harbour, and 
 Sydney Mines." 
 
 "Oh, those!" I rejoined; "Oh, yes. I know those 
 almost as well as I know the Croydons, and the Bromleys, 
 and the Hampsteads." 
 
 And, in truth, why " the Sydneys " ? Is geographical 
 nomenclature in New Scotland so poverty-stricken that 
 places separated by five miles of water, and seventeen miles 
 of rail, of different origins, different periods, and different 
 interests, should all be called Sydney ? I will not say 
 altogether different interests, because the Sydneys are all 
 joined together literally and figuratively by coal. 
 
 It is the old Spanish bay of the sixteenth century 
 British navigators. That great Canadian, Le Moyne 
 
 d'Iberville, the founder of Louisiana, set sail from here in 
 
 189
 
 190 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 1692, on one of his famous expeditions. Hither Admiral 
 Hovenden Walker took refuge after his withdrawal from 
 Quebec in 1711, asserting Queen Anne's sovereignty over 
 Cape Breton by erecting a wooden cross, duly inscribed, on 
 the shore. In the war of the American Revolution a 
 naval battle was fought here. Three years later, in 1784, 
 Governor Des Barres founded the town of Sydney. 
 
 The harbour of Sydney, which used to be called on the 
 old maps Spanish River, has an entrance two miles wide, 
 four miles above which it forms into two branches called 
 the North-west arm and the South-west arm, both being 
 protected from the sea by a low bar. It is on the east 
 side of the last named that the town of Sydney was built 
 a century and a quarter ago by disbanded soldiers, American 
 Loyalists, together with some Irish and Scotch, the chief 
 magnet even then being the mines ; although the magni- 
 ficent harbour and contiguity to the Mother Country no 
 doubt influenced the pioneers. 
 
 And what a harbour is this of Sydney ? Of great 
 depth, and so sheltered as to protect it from the force of 
 the ocean, none could be more secure. It is an ideal 
 place for yachting and boating of every description and 
 every craft from a man-o'-war to a birch-bark canoe may 
 be seen skimming over its surface. There is a prosperous 
 yacht club, and on a summer afternoon one may see here 
 a lively regatta in progress, and the whole harbour alive 
 with boats. The motor-boat and the steam-launch are 
 also popular here. 
 
 Sydney, which was a long time in fulfilling any of the 
 predictions current three-quarters of a century ago, now
 
 GREAT COAL-FIELDS 191 
 
 has a population of 15,000. But when Haliburton wrote 
 it had less than 500 souls. " The tide of fortune," he 
 observes, " has not yet set towards Sydney, and it appears, 
 together with Louisbourg, to be neglected for places that 
 cannot vie with it in natural capabilities." 
 
 The country round about is well worthy of agricultural 
 development ; the advantages for a fishing population are 
 marked, and the harbour opens up fine commercial possi- 
 bilities. But not until steel came to Sydney did it really begin 
 to flourish. In those distant days when Cape Breton was a 
 separate province, independent of Nova Scotia, the Lieutenant- 
 Governor and the other officials made this their capital, and 
 spending their incomes here, that money, and the compara- 
 tively little derived from coal-mining, seems to have been the 
 chief resource of the place, and the trading community was 
 content. Within a square at the north end of the town I 
 saw the remains of the barracks and commandant's house. 
 A court-house was also here, and a well-built Anglican 
 Church of stone. The houses boasted well-cultivated gardens, 
 in which there were many fruit trees, and the settlement on 
 the whole bore a considerable, and, on the whole, not sur- 
 prising resemblance to Pictou on the mainland. 
 
 Soon after the foundation of Sydney bituminous coal 
 began to be mined regularly. As early as 1735 a car g had 
 been shipped to Martinique, but not until a century later 
 did the General Mining Association begin operations on the 
 north side of Sydney Harbour. 
 
 Gradually the enormous extent of the coal-fields be- 
 came revealed. The North Sydney Colliery extended a 
 considerable distance under the sea, vessels in the harbour
 
 I9 2 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 passing over them. This gave rise to numerous witticisms 
 amongst the miners, formerly fishermen, whose mates were 
 trawling aloft. The pit came to yield 180,000 tons 
 annually. 
 
 In 1892 the total yield of the district was a million 
 tons, nearly four thousand men being employed in the 
 mines. Operations from their beginning at what is now 
 called Sydney Mines had spread across the harbour, be- 
 tween Sydney and Grace Bay. A syndicate of Canadian 
 and American capitalists some years ago acquired or held 
 options over all the working mines in the district. 
 
 On the south side of the harbour are the Victoria 
 Mines, and the others worked by the Dominion Coal Com- 
 pany in the district between Sydney and Cow Bay, twenty- 
 two miles distant, are the Gardner, the Old Bridgeport, the 
 International, and eight or nine others, which names, I was 
 sorry to observe, have been superseded by mere numbers. 
 But of this hereafter. 
 
 It was in 1892 that Mr. Whitney, of Boston, first 
 became interested in Nova Scotian coal properties. Under 
 his energetic management the slow and cautious methods 
 which had marked the output of coal since 1880 gave place 
 at once to development on a gigantic scale. Instead of 
 a long winter of idleness the men were employed con- 
 tinuously, and there was a great increase in the number of 
 hands employed, 'and a general advance in wages. 
 
 In five years the wage bill was $400,000 higher than at 
 any time when the old companies were operating the mines. 
 
 Nor was it on coal alone that the Whitney syndicate 
 concentrated their attention. The Dominion Iron and
 
 THE SYDNEY "BOOM" 193 
 
 Steel Company sprang into being, and forthwith another 
 great industry was added to Canada. 
 
 Coal, however, was all very well ; the difficulty was to 
 find an immediate market for it. When at length it was 
 realised that as much iron ore as was wanted could be had 
 from adjacent parts, and when the Dominion Government 
 offered a bounty on Canadian steel, steel works became 
 inevitable. The capital came in the first instance chiefly 
 from America, and one day Sydney awoke to find itself 
 the chosen locality for the operations of the Dominion 
 Steel Company. Other industries quickly followed in their 
 wake, and Sydney was in the grip of a " boom." Thousands 
 began flocking into the little town mechanics, artisans, 
 labourers of all kinds ; owners of real estates found their 
 properties enhanced beyond their wildest dreams, and the 
 building speculator began his operations. People rubbed 
 their eyes when they heard all this, for " booms " were 
 associated with the West, not with the extreme East. 
 
 By this time the Dominion Coal Company had built a 
 line of railway from Sydney to Louisburg, traversing its coal 
 territory. The potential supply of coal has been estimated 
 at a thousand million tons, not including the innumerable 
 seams less than four feet thick, nor the vast submarine bed 
 of coal between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, one 
 area of which contains at least three thousand acres. Of 
 course the coal trade alone means a large shipping business 
 for Sydney and the neighbourhood, and besides the regular 
 colliers, many steamers call here regularly for coaling. A 
 coaling station of the French navy is situated here, and 
 frequent are the visits of French cruisers. 
 
 N
 
 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 As has been said, Sydney is most favourably situated 
 for the production and shipment of iron and steel. 
 Although there are iron areas contiguous, yet the 
 Dominion Iron and Steel Company in starting business on a 
 large scale, decided to avail itself of the almost inexhaus- 
 tible supply at Bell Island, Newfoundland, where its pro- 
 perty is believed to be capable of yielding twenty-nine 
 million tons of ore, besides submarine deposits. Then, again, 
 the limestone and dolomite employed in the manufacture of 
 steel is near at hand. Four large blast-furnaces have been 
 erected at Sydney along the harbour front, eighty-five feet 
 high and eighteen feet maximum diameter. Each of these 
 furnaces will yield about three hundred tons of pig-iron 
 daily. There are five great blowing-engines, of two 
 thousand five hundred horse-power each, and each engine 
 will supply fifty thousand cubic feet of air per minute. 
 The boilers consist of sixteen batteries of two boilers, each 
 of sixteen thousand horse-power, and capable of pumping 
 six million gallons of water per day of twenty-four hours. 
 The area of ground covered by the works of the company 
 is four hundred and eighty acres, and is one of the busiest 
 spots on the continent. 
 
 The works are most advantageously situated in every 
 respect, being close by the waterside, connected with the 
 Intercolonial Railway, and with an abundant supply of 
 water for manufacturing purposes. The latter is procured 
 from the Sydney River, where a dam has been constructed 
 which is capable of supplying three million gallons of fresh 
 water daily. The length of the water main is eight miles. 
 The grounds and works are lighted by electricity, and in all
 
 COAL AND STEEL UNITE 195 
 
 the operations machinery of the most modern description 
 has been employed. The limits to which the works may 
 be extended cannot be defined, but the possibilities are, 
 as the reader may judge for himself, very great. 
 
 The whole works form virtually a town within them- 
 selves, and, with the blast-furnaces, the stock-yard, offices, 
 open-hearth ovens, blooming- mill, rail-mill, plate-mill, 
 machine-shop, foundry, shacks, hospitals, store-rooms, &c., 
 a complete system of a busy city is found. The machine- 
 shop and foundry of themselves cover more than 60,000 
 square feet of ground. The company has a capital of 
 over $20,000,000. 
 
 The wonderful advantages of Sydney for producing 
 iron and steel at the lowest prices can best be shown by a 
 comparison of it with Pittsburg. At Sydney the coal is 
 close at hand, and the coke ovens save all the volatile con- 
 stituents of the coal. At Pittsburg the coal is brought 
 from a distance of about eighty miles by rail, and the lime- 
 stone, which at Sydney is on the spot, has to be brought 
 a distance of one hundred and thirty miles to Pittsburg. 
 
 Only last year were these coal and steel companies 
 amalgamated, and thereby much rivalry and conflict of 
 interests terminated in a happy marriage. At first the 
 two companies were known as the " Dominion Steel and 
 Coal Corporation," the name being afterwards changed to 
 " Dominion Steel Corporation," which offered one share of 
 its stock for one of the common stock of the Coal and 
 Steel Companies. This offer was duly accepted, and in 
 a few months only a fraction over one per cent, of the 
 350,000 shares involved were outstanding.
 
 196 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 The board of directors of the Corporation was formed 
 of the members of the Boards of the component com- 
 panies, Mr. J. H. Plummer being chosen president. The 
 principal executive officers exercise jurisdiction in both the 
 Steel and Coal Companies. 
 
 Now that such economic and administrative initial 
 difficulties have been overcome, the strength of Sydney's 
 position is manifest to all. For here all the materials can 
 be assembled at lower cost than anywhere else on the 
 continent, and the finished product can be shipped from the 
 mills to any of the world's ports at less cost than from any 
 other point, for by water, as I heard it phrased senten- 
 tiously, " Sydney is nearer everywhere than anywhere else." 
 
 Sydney rails within the past twelvemonth have been 
 sent to India, Australia, and England. The Grand Trunk 
 Pacific is using them largely in construction, being shipped 
 by rail to the extreme sections of the line. They are 
 despatched by water to Fort William, at the head of Lake 
 Superior, and well into the interior of Canada, to build 
 the central portions of the road ; they have been shipped 
 around Cape Horn to British Columbia to lay the extreme 
 western sections from Prince Rupert east ; Europe, South 
 Africa, the West Indies, Mexico, are among the other 
 countries to which Sydney exports, although the bulk of her 
 products are consumed in the rapidly extending home 
 markets. Apart from this, Sydney is one of the most 
 convenient seaports on the Atlantic coast, whereas the 
 nearest seaport to Pittsburg is over 350 miles by rail, and 
 that seaport, Philadelphia, 878 miles further from Europe 
 than Sydney is. It will thus be seen what enormous
 
 STEEL WORKS BY NIGHT 197 
 
 advantages lie within the iron gateway of the great 
 Dominion ! x 
 
 And Sydney harbour at night. The waters very still and 
 glittering, and the light of Cassiopeia and the Pleiades all 
 but drowned in a great luminous effusion like a Milky 
 Way, and the whole northern horizon lurid with flames 
 and patches of red glow. Then lights lights dozens, 
 scores, hundreds of lights like those on a seaside espla- 
 nade or pier. Behind those distant lights in the midst 
 of those lights, grimy men, stripped to the waist, are 
 toiling are fulfilling the curse of Cain, or, as some think, 
 the blessing earning their bread by the sweat of their 
 brow. Ah, God, and they do sweat ! The very flesh on 
 their bones seems to melt, and the marrow to ooze from 
 their joints, and their eyes to sear, and their hair to singe. 
 Ah, say what you like, it is devil's work to look at ; but it 
 is to do, and those fellows do it manfully. It is not for 
 
 1 The principal items of production of the steel works for the year 1910 
 are as follows : 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Coke 410,000 
 
 Pig-iron 255,000 
 
 Steel ingots 304,000 
 
 Steel blooms 268,000 
 
 Steel billets 88,000 
 
 Steel rails 140,000 
 
 Steel wire rods 79,000 
 
 Sulphate of ammonia 3 5 ioo 
 
 Tar 3,900,000 gallons. 
 
 All the coke made is used in the works for smelting purposes. Only a 
 small proportion of the production of pig is sold as such, the greater part 
 being made into steel ingots which are all rolled into blooms. A consider- 
 able tonnage is marketed in this form, but about eighty-five per cent, is 
 advanced a further stage, and is sold in the form of rails and wire rods.
 
 198 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 them to pick and choose their calling no loafers or 
 shirkers are they they have enlisted with Pluto and Vulcan 
 they are at grips with fire and molten steel, and the 
 night-shift wrestles with both grimly. 
 
 And who are these men who sweat their bodies to 
 running oil in mighty furnaces in the night, on the shore 
 where of late was the primeval wilderness ? Whence comes 
 this hardy race ? Would you believe it if I said they were 
 fishermen pliers of nets who have been coursing, and 
 their fathers before, the briny deep ? These fellows have 
 shipped their rudder and beached their craft, and the salt 
 foam splashes their manly bosoms no more. 
 
 The chief and practically only industry of Sydney Mines 
 is the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company. The town 
 depends entirely on this corporation, which was founded 
 through the operations of the company's predecessors, the 
 General Mining Association, and its recent growth and 
 expansion has been due to the " Scotia " Corporation (as it 
 is colloquially called) in acquiring that property and greatly 
 extending the field of its operations. 
 
 The collieries and the iron and steel furnaces here 
 furnish employment to nearly four thousand men, and the 
 company's Sydney Mines wage-bill is nearly two millions of 
 dollars annually. Five collieries, a blast-furnace, four open- 
 hearth furnaces, 1 50 coke ovens, coal-washing plant, machine- 
 shops, and thirteen miles of railway make up the plant here. 
 At North Sydney, a few miles away, are the coal-shipping 
 and iron-ore discharging piers. 
 
 Glace Bay is the centre of the Dominion Company's 
 operations, the general offices being here, and the largest
 
 COAL STRIKES 199 
 
 and most productive of the shafts not far distant. One is 
 helped to realise the gigantic scale of the company's opera- 
 tions by the official statement that in 1911 they produced 
 3,892,958 tons. There are 5530 men on the pay-roll, 
 nearly all of whom command high wages and live accordingly. 
 Glace Bay, a desert a few years ago, has now a population 
 of 16,562, and is the third town in the whole Province. 
 
 New Scotland has not been free from labour troubles. 
 During 1909 the coal-mining districts were the theatre of 
 great and prolonged strikes. There was a famous strike at 
 Lingan in 1882, but since then none until 1909. Cape 
 Breton was free from disturbances of this kind, and as for 
 Pictou County, with the exception of a few days lost 
 at a couple of the collieries, there has been no strike in 
 twenty-three years. I do not suppose any coal-mining dis- 
 trict on the continent can show a similar period of freedom 
 from industrial strife. 
 
 But not many months ago the long peace was broken 
 when an alien society, with its intolerable methods, appeared 
 on the scene. These foreign unionists alleged they had 
 come to help the Nova Scotia miners, who were weak and 
 helpless, and at the mercy of the bloated capitalists. As a 
 matter of fact, the Cape Breton miners are freer, in the best 
 sense of the word, than their brethren over the border. 
 Certainly they had never hitherto been under the heel of the 
 labour " delegate." 
 
 " Our miners," I was told, " labour under far more 
 favourable conditions than the miners across the border. 
 Their comfort and safety while in the mine is better cared 
 for ; they are better housed ; and although Nature has
 
 200 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 ordained that coal-mining in Nova Scotia must be attended 
 with difficulties unknown in many districts of the United 
 States, fatal accidents are 50 per cent, fewer here than there, 
 due to our more advanced legislation, to a better enforcement 
 of the mining laws, and to the greater energy, skill, and 
 intelligence of the officials of our mines." 
 
 There are many persons who advocate Government opera- 
 tion of the coal-mines. In mining legislation Nova Scotia 
 enjoys the proud distinction of having, during the last thirty 
 years, led the world, but this is like similar proposals for 
 State-operated railways in Britain. There is one scheme 
 which the Province Government might adopt, and that is 
 a Government training mine as part of the education of the 
 people, whether that education be common, industrial, or 
 technical. The Government might operate a mine not for 
 profit, but for practical purposes and the solution of the 
 problems frequently occurring in the operation of coal- 
 mines. A training mine might be a fitting appendage to 
 the Nova Scotia Technical College. 
 
 For a serious problem is that of the underground 
 unskilled labour, or loader question. Another is the 
 " boy " question. 
 
 Many humanitarians are looking forward to a boyless 
 colliery, when it will be unprofitable for mine-owners to 
 employ boys in the mine. Not so long ago boys of five or 
 six were employed ; the age limit was extended to ten, then 
 to twelve, and on to fourteen, and the cry now is that the 
 limit should be extended to sixteen. 
 
 The solution of the whole difficulty is the elimination 
 of both the boy and the horse, and the substitution of
 
 A TRAINING MINE 201 
 
 mechanical haulage, and this, in spite of hindrances to the 
 general application of such a system and lack of capital, 
 will probably some day be brought about. 
 
 I have mentioned the technical education of the miner, 
 of which Mr. Drummond is an advocate. Novices would 
 pass through a Government training mine, where all under- 
 ground men would be miners, timbermen, and roadsmen 
 in turns, and from which a novitiate, after a given period, 
 say nine months, would be given his discharge papers and a 
 necessary third-class certificate as miner. In the mine the 
 novices would be under instructions from an experienced 
 working miner. On the whole there is very much to be 
 said in favour of the scheme, and Nova Scotia, which is a 
 pioneer in mining legislation, might lead the way. 
 
 The northern shore of the Great Bras d'Or entrance, 
 opposite Newfoundland, exhibits a precipitous range of 
 gypsum crags and pits, concealed by forest growth, and 
 forming a barrier between the Strait and St. Anne harbour. 
 The southern shore is really the long narrow Boularderie 
 Island, settled by Highlanders, and comparatively low-lying, 
 after which comes the entrance to Little Bras d'Or. The 
 transit by sea between the two channels is often dangerous 
 owing to the formidable out-jutting point of Aconi, about 
 which many tales are told. There is a sunken bar at the 
 entrance of the Little Bras d'Or, which prevents the entrance 
 of any but the smallest vessels. There is a road leading 
 southward from hence to North Sydney, and there is 
 another road crossing Boularderie Island to the Bras d'Or. 
 In this district both farming and fishing are carried on, but 
 the mines and steel works draw away most of the menfolk.
 
 202 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Off the coast south of Mira Bay lies the triangular 
 island of Scutari, projecting two of its points to the ocean 
 and a third towards the village of Mainadieu. This island, 
 five miles long, is the extreme easterly point of the Dominion 
 of Canada. The soil is poor, but it offers a convenient 
 station for fishermen, and there is a lighthouse, to warn 
 incoming vessels of the vicinity of Coromandiere rocks. 
 South of Scutari Island is Cape Breton, better known to 
 the coast mariners as Port Novy Land, from the little 
 islet of Puerto Nueva. It is from this low rocky point, 
 beaten by the Atlantic surge for centuries, yet standing firm 
 and compact, that the whole island of Cape Breton takes 
 its name, another illustration of the little tail wagging the 
 big dog. 
 
 Speaking of names, down the coast I looked with keen 
 curiosity for L'Orembeck, so often mentioned by Wolfe in 
 his letters during the siege of Louisburg in 1758, and where 
 he planted a battery. I was struck by the frequency with 
 which the name " Lorraine " occurred on the coast between 
 Port Novy and the Louisburg harbour lighthouse. Little 
 Lorraine, Big Lorraine, Lorraine Head, and Lorraine 
 River; but no L'Orembeck was in evidence until I met 
 with an old French fisherman, who pointed to Lorraine 
 Head, and said, " La voili Lorraine Bee," and the 
 mystery was instantly solved. 1 There is a landing cove 
 here, and a mile inland is the terminus of the Sydney and 
 Louisburg Railway. 
 
 1 Bee was often applied to bold, jutting headlands. " Quel Bee ! " 
 cried the mariners when they saw Cape Diamond, and the exclamation 
 gave a name to a city and province.
 
 MIRA BAY 203 
 
 Eighteen years ago (1893) Louisburg could only be 
 reached from Sydney by sea or by a truly infamous road, 
 which had the effect of cutting it off from the itinerary of 
 most tourists. Between Sydney and Lingan, which is the 
 next harbour on the coast, a fertile and timbered country 
 was settled by the Irish, who called their settlement Low 
 Point, and the deep circular pond hard by Kilkenny Lake. 
 Before the advent of the coal-mining population, Lingan 
 used to be noted for the giant flocks of wild geese fre- 
 quenting this region, to feed upon the seaweed and the 
 vegetation of the harbour flats. So prevalent and exposed 
 are the veins of coal hereabouts that the surface of the 
 ground used to present a dead appearance in many places, 
 from having been reduced to a cinder by a fire which once 
 ranged and continued burning in the recesses of the cliff 
 between Glace Bay and Port Morien for a period of several 
 years. Between Cape Percy and Mira Bay a barren penin- 
 sula, five miles long and two wide, juts out, ending in Cape 
 Morien. This peninsula is joined to the mainland by a 
 low strip of sand, called False Bay Beach, which often used 
 to deceive the mariner approaching from the sea by tempting 
 him to essay a passage through to Port Morien. Inshore 
 hereabouts was settled by American Loyalists, and their 
 descendants are here to this day. Rounding the coast we 
 find ourselves face to face with Mira Bay, a " crescent of 
 fair sandy beach." The Louisburg Railway has more or 
 less followed the contour of the land, and its station of 
 Mira is not far from the sea towards the centre of the bay, 
 into which empties the beautiful Mira River. Here is the 
 favourite summer resort of the holiday-making folk of the
 
 204 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Sydneys and the mining district. The beach is a mile long, 
 sloping gradually. Here one sees in large numbers the 
 celebrated leaping tunny-fish, which afford sport both to 
 spectators and fishermen. These fish, sometimes called 
 horse-mackerel, grow in Atlantic waters to a monstrous 
 size, frequently weighing 400 Ibs., and even fish double 
 that size are met with. They leap from the water like 
 salmon, but have not yet been captured with rod, line, 
 and hook, though one Sydney fisherman stuck to one 
 monster for twelve hours before he was forced to " sever 
 the connection." The tunny season begins about the 
 middle of July. Mira River is perhaps more of a character 
 of a long narrow lake, prolonged by what is called Mira 
 Gut, until it touches the sea. It is fed by the Salmon River, 
 which rises some thirty miles from the coast, and the chain 
 forms of river and lakes practically runs the whole length 
 of this part of Cape Breton. For those who wish to take 
 a pleasure cruise into the interior, a little steamer runs from 
 Mira daily. After passing the Gut a gorgeous panorama of 
 land and water meets the eye, as the steamer courses through 
 a somewhat irregular waterway with numerous tree-clad 
 islets. Navigation for steamers of small burden is practi- 
 cable for twenty-five miles. About half-way up is Sangaree 
 Island, which divides the river in two, and upon which some 
 enterprising hotel-keeper has established "Kamp Kill Kare," 
 an orthography which should delight the heart of the late 
 Mr. Josh Billings or of Mr. Andrew Carnegie. In the 
 height of the summer the islets and the shores are filled 
 with campers, for the salmon fishing is excellent.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LOUISBOURG 
 
 I FOUND it a far different thing arriving at Louisbourg by 
 land from arriving by sea. In the latter case, one enjoys 
 a rapid coup tfceil from the moment one turns Lighthouse 
 Point, of the harbour, Goat Island, the new village of 
 Louisburg, and the site and ruins of the old town on the 
 left. The first impression is that of a rapid transition 
 from a violent running sea into a spacious harbour strangely 
 quiet, considering what seems to be the exposed state of 
 the entrance. But this exposure is not real, because Louis- 
 burg Harbour is protected by a sunken bar, not uncovered 
 even at low tide. After the rugged and precipitous rocks 
 succeed a series of hillocks here and there covered with 
 stunted firs, and the land for a mile inland is poor and 
 barren. An air of desolation broods about the place, which 
 is hardly lessened by the great and grimy scaffoldings which 
 form the wharves of the coal company, or the groups of 
 fishermen's cottages close to the water's edge, although the 
 eye catches glimpses of two or three trim white painted 
 churches scattered along the borders of the harbour. 
 
 But were the prospect greyer and more morose to the 
 ignorant eye, nothing could destroy the light which the 
 spectacle will ever lend to him who has read Louisbourg's 
 story, or restrain the thrill it imparts when seen for the 
 first time. 
 
 90S
 
 206 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 To the visitor by road or rail the surroundings of the 
 modern village of Louisburg are apt to disenchant. Not 
 even the presence of the two French cannon at the railway 
 station, updrawn a few years ago from the depths of the 
 harbour, quite offset the mile long stroll upon a creaking 
 plank side walk through a succession of hideous clap- 
 boarded stores, the bank, the lawyer's office, the post- 
 office, and eating-house. The older dwellings of the village 
 are already falling into decay, and one old woman, one of 
 the M' Alpines, who had seen better days, complained that 
 the walls of her house, her home for forty years, scarce 
 now sufficed to keep out the weather ; and she and her 
 faithful companion trembled lest it should not endure as 
 long as their few remaining years. For it was no longer 
 theirs : it had somehow together with most of the others 
 passed out of their hands into those of the coal company, 
 which like most corporations knew no mercy towards 
 poor tenants. 
 
 But there is a great ray of light in New Louisburg, 
 and as for me I shall not easily forget the memory of one 
 plucky English clergyman who, amidst poverty and squalor, 
 and social and spiritual dreariness, for twenty-eight years 
 has fought a cheery battle against these forces, and under 
 conditions in many ways far harder than those which face 
 a Houndsditch curate, has not trampled down his flag, or 
 even allowed himself to be discouraged. His name is the 
 Rev. Fraser Draper (although I have called him, and I 
 believe he calls himself an Englishman, there is a Scottish 
 element in him), and his parish covers, I think, some forty 
 square miles. To this he ministers either on a bicycle
 
 A CHEERY RECTOR 207 
 
 or afoot. Far less affluent is he than the Roman Catholic 
 priest, who would seem to have so many votaries hereabouts, 
 or even of the Presbyterian minister ; yet this Anglican is 
 the man for his work and his flock, and has strongly stir- 
 ring within him that cheery manly something which is 
 more the backbone and support of an Englishman's reli- 
 gion than the Thirty-nine Articles, and shines more in a 
 selfish world than all the candles on all the altars. My 
 friend is a great authority on the history and topography of 
 Louisbourg (mark the spelling Louisburg is the modern 
 town), and has himself quite a collection of objects of 
 interest connected with both sieges. He told me of the 
 visits to him of Lord and Lady Minto, Lord Dundonald 
 and others, and of the pleasure it gave him to show them 
 over the site of the famous town. From his parsonage in 
 the very centre of the harbour's crescent shore there arises, 
 three miles away to the right, a small upstanding column 
 on the horizon. This was my beacon as I set out for Old 
 Louisbourg the shaft erected by the men of Massachusetts 
 fifteen years ago to commemorate William Pepperell and 
 the first siege of Louisbourg in 1745. 
 
 A French officer reported that Louisbourg was so strong 
 that it might be held against any assault by an army of 
 women. Yet English prisoners who had dwelt in the 
 fortress believed Louisbourg might be taken, and their hopes 
 were eagerly seized upon and shared by Governor Shirley of 
 Massachusetts, a lawyer by profession, full of energy and en- 
 terprise, who now resolved upon the capture of Louisbourg. 
 Unless the English had control of the whole coast from 
 Cape Sable to the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the safety, nay,
 
 208 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 the very existence of New England was in constant jeopardy. 
 The discontent and bad discipline of the Louisbourg garrison, 
 which consisted of 1 300 men, was a promising factor. The 
 ramparts were, moreover, said to be defective in more than 
 one place, and, besides this, if the French ships which came 
 over sea with provisions and reinforcements could be inter- 
 cepted, Shirley felt there was no small chance of success. He 
 wrote instantly to London asking the Government to help 
 him with ships. Without waiting for a reply a little fleet was 
 raised, and a land force of 4000 men, chiefly composed of 
 artisans, farmers, fishermen, and labourers, commanded by a 
 merchant named Pepperell, was mustered for the expedition. 
 Although lacking military experience, Pepperell possessed 
 courage and good judgment, and was anxious to distinguish 
 himself. On the 24th March 1745 the ships left Boston, 
 reaching Canso ten days later. Here they remained three 
 weeks, waiting for the ice to melt in the bays and harbours. 
 Here, too, they were joined by the English commodore, 
 Warren, whom King George had sent to assist in the capture 
 of Louisbourg. 
 
 The command of Louisbourg was in the hands of M. 
 Duchambon. One night, just after a public ball, a captain, 
 attired in his night-clothes, came rushing into the Governor's 
 chamber to report that a strange fleet had been sighted by 
 the sentries entering Gabarus Bay, five miles distant. Soon 
 the cannons were booming loudly from the walls, and a peal 
 of bells rang through the town. Pepperell made a pretence 
 of landing his troops at a certain point so as to deceive the 
 French. A skirmish took place, in which the French were 
 beaten back and some of them taken prisoners. Before
 
 THE FIRST SIEGE 209 
 
 nightfall 2000 of the New Englanders had planted foot on 
 the shore, and the next day the siege of Louisbourg was 
 begun. A hard and dangerous task was the landing of the 
 artillery and stores, owing to the rolling surf. There being 
 no wharf, the men had to wade through the sea to bring 
 the guns, ammunition, and provisions on shore. This alone 
 consumed an entire fortnight. Batteries were thrown up, in 
 spite of sallies made from the town by French and Indians 
 to prevent them. An outside battery was captured, mounted 
 with twenty-eight heavy guns, which now belched forth shot 
 and shell amongst the besieged. Warehouses and other 
 places took fire, and great columns of smoke hid the fort 
 from view for days at a time. The walls were at last seen 
 to crumble, and when the guns of the Americans began 
 to close up on the fortress, Duchambon summoned to 
 surrender, replied that he would when forced to do so by 
 the cannon of the foe. Upon the island battery being 
 silenced, the English fleet entered the harbour and turned 
 upon him its 500 guns. Duchambon's supply of gunpowder 
 being now exhausted, Louisbourg surrendered after a siege 
 lasting forty-nine days. 
 
 The fall of Louisbourg, the key to French power in 
 North America, seemed almost incredible to the French. 
 It was resolved at Versailles that an expedition should be 
 sent out to Cape Breton to recapture it at all hazards. One 
 of the finest fleets that ever left the shores of France sailed 
 from Rochelle the following year, commanded by the Due 
 d'Anville, consisting of thirty-nine ships of war, with orders to 
 recapture Louisbourg and Cape Breton, and to ravage Boston 
 and the New England coasts. But a fierce tempest dispersed
 
 210 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 the whole squadron. When, at Chebucto, D'Anville arrived 
 with the remnants of his fleet, his mortification was so great 
 as to induce an apoplectic stroke, from which he died, and 
 on an island in what is to-day known as Halifax Harbour, 
 his body was buried. On the afternoon of the very day on 
 which the French commander died, his Vice-admiral, Destour- 
 nelles, arrived with three more ships. More than 2000 
 men of the fleet were stricken with fever and perished. 
 Destournelles, seeing no hope for success, proposed that the 
 expedition should be abandoned and that the fleet should 
 return to France, a proposal which most of his officers 
 resisted. They desired to attack Annapolis, which was weak 
 and had a small garrison. Once it was captured, Acadia 
 was regained for France. Admiral Destournelles, thinking 
 his action reflected on his character and honour, retired, and 
 next morning they found him stabbed by his own hand 
 through the breast. 
 
 Ere the French fleet could reach Annapolis, another 
 great storm arose, scattering the ships, and after 2500 brave 
 Frenchmen had been lost in this ill-fated expedition, the only 
 course remaining was to return. 
 
 In 1748 was signed the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and 
 Louisbourg was handed back to France. Ten years later 
 Pitt resolved upon its final destruction, and the story of the 
 second siege is known to every schoolboy. In the interval 
 between the two sieges the fortress had been considerably 
 strengthened, and its new commandant, M. Drucour, was a 
 man of great ability. 
 
 The summer sun battled with sea-fog upon the miles 
 of brown moorland, scrubbed birch, and rocky beach as I
 
 WOLFE'S BATTERY 211 
 
 set out for Old Louisbourg the scant ruins of the French 
 fortress lying some three miles away on a low-lying spit 
 of land, Point Rochefort, on the south-western side of 
 the harbour. This present village a collection of shops 
 and miners' and fishermen's cottages, and the wharves 
 and lofty ruins of the coal company occupies the site 
 of the old royal battery which Brigadier-General James 
 Wolfe seized and turned on the enemy. A century and 
 a half ago from this distance the eye could have discerned 
 across the harbour the roofs, spires, and stately battlements 
 of a busy town. Now one's only beacon along the barren 
 shore is that slender shaft the Americans have there erected 
 to commemorate the first siege. I followed the winding, 
 rock-strewn road to this once-famed spot, where stood the 
 " Dunkirk of the North." A moderate familiarity with the 
 military maps of the period enables one to trace out the 
 chief features of the neighbourhood. To-day it is all a 
 desert. There is no place like it, save Carthage. I crossed 
 the bridge over the land-locked inlet called the Barachois. 
 On my left, before the mouth of the harbour, lay Goat 
 Island, where the French had a strong battery. Immediately 
 in front are the remains of Wolfe's siege works, when 
 the young warrior knew he had the town in his grasp ; 
 and here, a pistol-shot further on, stood the Dauphin's 
 Gate, where the same leader and his victorious soldiers, 
 " swarthy with wind and sun, and begrimed with smoke 
 and dust," entered on the morning of the 2yth of July 
 1758. Some ruins of the Dauphin's Bastion still remain, 
 and a little further on are the relics of the bomb-proof 
 casemates of the King's Bastion. I gained the summit
 
 212 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 of one of the green mounds which once were citadel, 
 bastion, ramparts, and glacis. " Here," I could say with 
 Parkman, "stood Louisbourg; and not all the efforts of 
 its conquerors, nor all the havoc of succeeding times, have 
 availed to efface it. Men in hundreds toiled for months, 
 toiled with lever, spade, and gunpowder, in the work of 
 destruction, and for more than a century it has served as 
 a stone quarry ; but the remains of its vast defences still 
 tell their tale of human valour and human woe." A cow, 
 a few lean sheep, a little group of fishermen's children, 
 are all that infest the spot and unwittingly consort with 
 the spirits of the past. Here, at a charge of ten millions 
 sterling, the most celebrated contemporary military engineers 
 of France had reared a fortress without parallel in the New 
 World. Within its ramparts dwelt some 10,000 souls. 
 On this barren, wind-swept point, nestled a busy town 
 behind sheltering walls, crowned by a citadel and adorned 
 by lofty buildings. Here numerous regiments in the 
 white-coated uniform of France, naval officers, monks, 
 missionaries, mingled with the fisherfolk and the New 
 England traders. To-day all is silence and desolation. 
 
 Nearly seven miles in circumference is Louisbourg 
 Harbour, whose mouth is so blocked with reefs and islands 
 that the entrance is hardly above half a mile wide. This 
 was commanded by Goat Island carrying an effective 
 battery. For a distance of several miles westward the 
 shores of the Bay of Gabarus offered a stern and precipitous 
 natural barrier to the foe, broken here and there by 
 entrenched caves or inlets. Breastworks formed of wooden 
 stakes also help to prevent a landing. I strolled over
 
 WHERE WOLFE LANDED 213 
 
 the uneven turf with feelings of deep emotion. It is 
 still easy to trace the lines of the fortifications, to mark 
 the sites of the buildings, and the lines of the chief streets. 
 In the Rue du Roy I picked up a fragment of a French 
 ramrod ; and a fisherman offered me a French wine-bottle 
 of curious shape he had found in the cellar of the 
 Governor's house. Grape-shot and bullets still strew 
 the site. But only too well did the victors do their work 
 of demolition. For six months soldiers and sailors toiled 
 at the task, and the remnants of two bastions, with bomb- 
 proof casements, a heap of stones here, a pile of bricks 
 there, are all that remain. On the site of the Intendant's 
 palatial dwelling is the wooden cottage of a fisherman. 
 
 In the teeth of a high wind I pushed along the shore 
 west of the King's Bastion. There I saw and felt the 
 breastworks of spruce still protruding from the surf-swept 
 beach. I saw where Lord Dundonald fell, and where his 
 bones now lie, and gazed across to Coromandiere Cove to 
 the spot where Wolfe landed. The very rock that felt the 
 impact of his boat's prow is still reverently pointed out. 
 
 Should not all this theatre of stirring events be preserved 
 as historic ground ? Its former renown was universal ; its 
 present oblivion is a national reproach. 
 
 I was interested in ascertaining to whom the ground of 
 Louisbourg now belongs. Some years ago a claimant 
 appeared in the person of a Captain Kenelly, who, pur- 
 chasing the land of certain squatters, proceeded to put his 
 own peculiar ideas concerning the preservation of Louisbourg 
 into execution. But it is to be feared that the worthy 
 captain, besides having no very clear title, was altogether
 
 2i 4 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 ill-advised in his proceedings. He even went the length of 
 repointing the French masonry, skirting the site of the town 
 with a barbed-wire fence, and exacting a fee for admission 
 to tourists. 
 
 Few are the tourists who penetrate to this spot, and 
 those that come hail chiefly from New England. Fifteen 
 years ago, on the i5Oth anniversary of the first capture of 
 Louisbourg by Sir William Pepperell, funds were raised 
 in Boston for a monument to commemorate the event, and 
 a band of pious pilgrims duly established a granite shaft 
 on the site of the Dauphin's Gate. And again, quite 
 recently, a large party from Halifax, consisting of members 
 of the Halifax Board of Trade (anglid Chamber of Com- 
 merce) and their friends, arrived on a holiday excursion, 
 bringing with them a brass band. On that deserted Atlantic 
 shore, near the forgotten cemetery which holds the graves 
 of thousands of French, English, and American dead, there 
 floated out on the air the strains of "The Maple Leaf" 
 the first martial music to awaken echoes in this spot for a 
 century and a half. 
 
 The seafaring Kenelly is dead, his schemes are in abey- 
 ance, and his title to the land is vigorously disputed. 
 Indeed, there seems to be little doubt that the whole site 
 of this fortress is Imperial property, and the sooner an 
 arrangement is devised which will give Louisbourg into 
 the charge of the Battlefields Commission or some body 
 appointed to conserve it, the better. It would be an eternal 
 reproach to the Dominion if it allows these sacred vestiges 
 to be swept from the face of the earth, save for the memorial 
 which the piety of Americans have placed on British ground
 
 GAELIC FOLK 215 
 
 in memory of the exploit of their forebears. Why should 
 we British do less for our victory and our victors ? And, 
 may I add, for the valour of a defeated foe ? 
 
 There is much agricultural land hereabouts, chiefly 
 cultivated by Highland Scots. " Quaint, indeed, are the 
 ways of many of them," says one traveller, " amusing their 
 maxims, and droll their wit." Can it be that this writer 
 forms his notion of Highland drollery from the exhibitions 
 of Mr. Harry Lauder ? The truth is being forced upon a 
 reluctant and prejudiced world that the Scots and the Jews 
 are the true humorists of the world, but I do not think that 
 humour is typical of the Gaelic folk. Personally I have 
 seen none of it in them either in Old World or New, and 
 my experience of the "droll Highlanders" of Cape Breton 
 is that their ideas of drollery are rather Lancastrian in their 
 cold-bloodedness. Hospitable these folk are, doubtless, 
 but only upon occasion and when the mood takes them. I 
 have heard of a traveller, a mining engineer, whose buggy 
 broke down, and who sought in vain for refreshment for 
 miles in this part of Cape Breton. " Some bread." " We've 
 nae bread." " Some cheese." " We've nae cheese." " Some 
 water." " The well's dried up ; try the store." This was 
 a colloquy which took place after a half-a-dozen attempts 
 with folk who shook their heads and had " nae English." 
 At the store, as he enumerated each item of his wants, the 
 storekeeper looked blank and replied, " We've nae call 
 for it." 
 
 " Have you no crackers ? " 
 
 " We've nae call for them ; there's some ship's biscuit 
 and some molasses."
 
 216 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Ship's biscuit and molasses ! Hurrah ! God's own 
 country ! Ship's biscuit, unless very mouldy, are milk- 
 white ; molasses is, in respect of its saccharine quality, 
 something like honey. So we have come to twenty 
 square miles of tillable country not exactly flowing, but in 
 one spot oozing, let us say, something resembling milk and 
 honey. One wonders, casting an eye over the sun-kissed 
 rolling earth, at the quivering pines, birch and beeches, why 
 human beings should for so long be content with so small a 
 measure of material prosperity as this. 
 
 " Them," says a guide in my ear, " why, them fellows is 
 rich. Ain't they got stockingsful of guineas in their cellars ? 
 Don't you waste any pity on them farmers. When they 
 ain't farming they're fishing, and when they ain't fishing they 
 take a spell o' mining. They cling to what they get, and, 
 barring a little smuggled gin or rum, get their living cheap, 
 I tell you." 
 
 The country between Glace Bay and Louisbourg ought 
 to be a famous grazing country, especially for sheep. 
 The cattle I saw at Mira Bay looked fat and comely, and 
 in the western parts of Cape Breton a great sheep-raising 
 industry might well be established. When it is understood 
 that the food demands of the mining and manufacturing 
 population are already far greater than the Nova Scotian 
 farmers can supply, it will be seen at once how great is the 
 opportunity here to establish a paying market, especially for 
 mutton, poultry, vegetables, and dairy products. 
 
 As for sport hereabouts, besides large and small game 
 in season, the existence of so many small streams ensures 
 an abundance even a superabundance of fish. I heard
 
 "A SPORTSMAN'S PARADISE" 217 
 
 an angler on the Mira River who, two days before my 
 arrival, had caught eighty trout in one day ! They were, 
 for the most part, useless to him, and he had to leave them 
 behind. Such " sport " is bound to pall one takes refuge 
 in the reflection that it cannot last. Cape Breton, like 
 Newfoundland, is being discovered by hunters of moose, 
 snarers of trout and salmon, and seekers of wild-fowl and 
 shore birds from afar, and trains and steamers are pouring 
 their human freight into the solitudes of yesterday. 
 
 Than a "Sportsman's Paradise" I know no phrase so 
 absurdly abused ; but if getting what he wants and all he 
 wants in the way of fish and fowl and fauna generally con- 
 stitutes a sportsman's idea of happiness, I know of no place 
 where he can be quite so happy.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 A NEW INVERNESS 
 
 SKIRTING the south coast of Cape Breton one comes to one 
 of the places where Cape Breton gains an additional island 
 by the presence of a narrow water passage between two 
 sections of land. In this instance it is the work of man 
 and not of nature. As man found Cape Breton, the whole 
 four hundred and fifty square miles of water of the great 
 interior lake of Cape Breton was by the Little Bras d'Or on 
 the north-east coast, so that the early settlers wishing to 
 go from the Strait of Canso to Sydney, for example, had 
 to go and sail around the Cape Breton coast. This was 
 intolerable, considering that at St. Peter's Bay, a neck of 
 land, half a mile wide, alone prevented a south-west pas- 
 sage to and from the Bras d'Or, not only a saving of 
 hundreds of miles, but an abolition of the risks, sometimes 
 serious enough, of navigating the coast. A century ago 
 the importance of the scheme to cut a canal across this 
 narrow isthmus of St. Peter's was realised, and in 1825 an 
 engineer named Hall surveyed the isthmus and made an 
 estimate for the cutting, which, I believe, was done for little 
 more than 20,000. Up to that time there had been a 
 portage here for very small craft. St. Peter's was settled 
 by the French even before Arichat, and came very near 
 being settled as the site of the great French fortress 
 
 ait
 
 ST. PETER'S CANAL 219 
 
 which was destined for Cape Breton, and which was ulti- 
 mately fixed at Louisbourg. At a spot in the locality 
 called Briquerie Point the clay was dry for the brick used 
 in building the town of Louisbourg, one of the very bricks 
 of which lies before me on the table as I write. 
 
 The canal is about 2400 feet long, with a breadth 
 of 55 feet, and a depth of 19 feet, debouching at its 
 northern end into St. Peter's inlet, which in turn flows 
 into the widest part of the Bras d'Or. Through this canal 
 the steamer from Mulgrave passes along the Strait of Canso, 
 and through Lennox Passage to St. Peter's. 
 
 The sites of both English and French forts are easily to 
 be traced at the present time. The latter, indeed, is close to 
 the canal, and the house of the lockmaster is upon it. The 
 old earthworks are plainly to be seen, and occasional finds 
 of bayonets and other evidences of warfare are made. A 
 few years ago a hooped cannon was unearthed, undoubtedly 
 belonging to a period long prior to the building of the 
 " Port Toulouse " fort here in 1749. It had probably been 
 the property of Denys de Fronsac, who had a settlement here 
 as long ago as 1636. Fort Granville, used after the English 
 occupation of Cape Breton, was on the hill to the east of 
 the canal lock. In this locality is Jordan Chapel island, 
 where the first chapel for the use of the Micmacs is said to 
 have been erected by the French over two centuries ago. 
 It is the scene of several interesting legends still related by 
 the Indians. 
 
 There is good bathing at St. Peter's, and as a matter of 
 course there is every facility for boating, both in the bay and 
 the inlet at the other end of the canal. Excellent trout-
 
 220 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 fishing may be had by going a short distance. Some of the 
 best streams are river Tiere and its branches, two miles 
 distant ; Scott's River, seven miles ; Thorn's Brook, fifteen 
 miles ; and Grand River, a like distance. There are salmon 
 in the last-named river. 
 
 A good deal has been said about the indifferent roads 
 in Nova Scotia, but those about here are well made, 
 and from the nature of the soil do not become muddy. 
 Among attractive drives are those to river Bourgeois, 
 five miles ; and to Grand River along the shore through 
 1'Ardoise. A favourite water excursion, on the Bras d'Or 
 side, is to the quarries at Marble Mountain, a distance of 
 fifteen miles. On the way thither is Point Michaux, or 
 Cape Himlopen or Hinchinbroke. It has all three names, 
 but is usually known by the first one. Here there is a 
 beautiful driving beach, two miles long, and an eighth of 
 a mile wide. It is very level, and of such hard, smooth 
 sand that the hoofs of the horses make little more impression 
 on it. 
 
 St. Peter's Inlet is studded with islands clad in verdure, 
 and there are times when the scene is unusually beautiful, 
 even for a land of which beauty is everywhere. On a calm 
 summer morning, for instance, the peaceful sea is a mirror 
 which reflects in rare beauty the red, purple, and golden hues 
 which the sunlight gives the hills. On the land the colours 
 are strangely bright, while the waters soften and blend the 
 whole into a picture which must ever linger in the memory. 
 
 St. Peter's may also be reached from Point Tupper on 
 the opposite side of the Strait of Canso, by taking the Cape 
 Breton Railway, a journey of thirty-one miles.
 
 ISLE MADAME 221 
 
 The tides run through the Strait of Canso at the rate of 
 from four to six miles an hour, and they defy the tide- 
 tables by rising superior to all rules by which men look for 
 tides to be governed. Their course is determined to a 
 large extent by the force and direction of the winds outside, 
 and they may flow in one direction for days at a time. 
 The tourist can tell whether the steamer is going with 
 or against the tide by watching the spar buoys and noting 
 the direction in which they point. 
 
 Arichat, situated on Isle Madame, with about seven 
 hundred souls, was formerly the seat of the Bishop of 
 Arichat, until the see was removed to Antigonish. It 
 is built on high ground, and has a fine harbour. There 
 is another good harbour at West Arichat. The situa- 
 tion of the island makes the climate delightfully cool 
 in the warmest of weather. This place was one of the 
 important stations of the Jersey fishing houses, and the 
 Robins still have an establishment here. In the township 
 are many Acadian French, some of the families having 
 come here from Grand Pre at the time of the dispersion. 
 Houses are easily procured at Arichat by those who wish 
 to reside here during the summer, and several Americans 
 have been regular visitors for years, making the village a 
 centre from which to take various trips through the 
 surrounding country. 
 
 So far I have spoken of the middle and the eastern 
 Cape Breton. But there is, as the map will show you, 
 another side, the western, where is situated the county of 
 Inverness, whose coast-line stretches from St. George's Bay 
 northward to Cape Lawrence. All this region settled by
 
 222 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Highlanders and French has been only recently opened up 
 by the Inverness Railway, a line built to tap the great 
 coal deposits in the vicinity of Port Hood, Mabou and 
 Broad Cove. This line starts from the Intercolonial Rail- 
 way at Point Tupper, and has opened up a fine piece of 
 farming country, and provided a winter outlet for the 
 large quantities of coal being produced at Port Hood and 
 Inverness. The road follows the coast-line for the entire 
 distance from Port Hastings to Inverness, and an exceed- 
 ingly fine panorama of land and sea is disclosed to the 
 view. A daily passenger service has been inaugurated, 
 connection with the Intercolonial being made at Point 
 Tupper. 
 
 A steamer runs from Mulgrave to Port Hood, a dis- 
 tance of twenty-six miles, on regular days of each week. 
 Port Hood is near the entrance to the Bay, and from there 
 the journey may be continued to Mabou, Inverness, 
 Margaree Harbour, and Cheticamp. My solitary fellow 
 passenger was a gentleman from Antigonish, whom I neither 
 flatter nor depreciate when I say he was the most typical 
 Highlander I have ever seen. Tall and spare, with florid 
 skin and high cheek-bones, and hair and beard which a 
 decade ago or so must have been violently red, the beard 
 jutting out in true Highland aggressiveness, it was some- 
 thing of a surprise to me to find that he did not say 
 " whateffer," and an eternal disappointment that he spoke 
 anything but Gaelic. But indeed he had the Highland 
 brevity of speech, and glowered about him from under his 
 bushy eyebrows much as such a man should properly glower 
 when in kilts, and with a claymore in his hand.
 
 A TYPICAL HIGHLANDER 223 
 
 " Who is that man ? " I asked the conductor of the 
 train. 
 
 " That oh, that's old MacTavish." 
 
 "I knew it." 
 
 " Then what did you ask for ? " 
 
 "I mean, I knew .he must be a MacTavish. I was 
 afraid you would tell me he was a Mr. Tompkins of 
 Boston. He seems preoccupied." 
 
 " Occupied ? Aye, he's a busy man is Senator 
 MacTavish." 
 
 I could not restrain a start of surprise. In the old 
 days, a couple of centuries ago, in the old and real Inver- 
 ness country, this man would have been a chieftain of 
 freebooters and cattle-lifters, and doubtless played his part 
 as deftly, as daring, and as dourly as under the changed 
 conditions of our modern civilisation he plays it now. 
 Afterwards, I had some conversation with Mr. MacTavish, 
 and not once I am glad to say did he abandon his character 
 or fall away from the high opinion I had formed of him 
 at sight. I only mention this trifling rencontre, because 
 shortly after my return to England, I read a telegraphic 
 despatch in the Times to the effect that " Senator X. Y. 
 MacTavish has been appointed to" well, to very high 
 office. 
 
 The train has arrived at Port Hood, which is the county 
 town of Inverness. There are not many of the amenities 
 of life here, and one could not reasonably expect more, 
 because the two thousand souls here are in the swirl and 
 centre of the Port Hood coal boom. The property worked 
 at present by the company is on the coast, sixteen square
 
 224 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 miles in extent, and there are two principal seams, some 
 seven or eight feet thick, supposed to contain nearly 
 150,000,000 tons of coal,- which are being mined at the 
 rate of some 500 tons a day. Yet Port Hood is already 
 looking up as a summer resort, and many denizens of towns 
 and cities who wish to leave the beaten track have fixed 
 upon this place and its picturesque environs as a capital 
 centre for boating, fishing, and bathing. 
 
 Coal is the great factor of Cape Breton, and it would 
 make a Londoner's mouth water to see how cheap and 
 accessible it is. There are places where, as has been said, a 
 man can, without leaving his farm, go down to the sea- 
 shore and dig his winter's coal as easily as he digs his 
 potatoes. Coal in abundance is frequently struck in digging 
 for fence posts, and around Port Hood in Inverness county 
 you are sure to strike it if your spade goes deep enough. 
 
 There are a couple of islands off Port Hood, one of 
 which had a great interest for me. It is called Smith's 
 Island ; that this is no arbitrary title will be gathered from 
 the fact that of the fifteen families on Smith's Island, 
 thirteen are Smiths. But then, of course, Smith is almost 
 as much Highland as MacGregor. These thirteen families 
 of Smith have divided the 500 acres of the island into farms, 
 producing four or five tons of hay to the acre, root crops, 
 and maize. Each family goes in for sheep-rearing, and 
 there are fifty or sixty cows .besides. But this does not 
 exhaust the resources of the Smiths ; they are fishermen, 
 and make use of the fish offal as manure, which practically 
 accounts for the land's fertility, and there is a flourishing 
 business in lobster canning. The fish caught is not dried
 
 PORT HOOD 225 
 
 exclusively, as was formerly the case, but a proportion of it 
 is shipped fresh in government bait freezers and refrigerator 
 cars, a system which is happily coming into vogue throughout 
 Maritime Canada. Now I feel sure that if a similar colony 
 of Browns, Jones, and Robinsons would emigrate and settle 
 on Outer or any of the other islands about the coast, a like 
 prosperity awaits them. 
 
 From Port Hood the railway goes on northward to 
 Mabou, and to still further coalfields. Beautifully situated 
 is Mabou on a stream a few miles from Mabou harbour, 
 and there is an abundance of trout fishing hereabouts. 
 Past Mabou the line skirts Lake Ainslee, the largest 
 freshwater lake in Cape Breton. 
 
 Inverness, now the chief town of Western Cape Breton 
 Island, is only about a decade old. In 1900 the population 
 was less than 100. In 1911 it had nearly 3000 souls. 
 
 The locality was formerly known as " Broad Cove 
 Mines," or "Loch Leven," and it was originally the 
 " Shean." " Shean " means, I was told, the " home of the 
 fairies." It nestles under the towering heights of lofty Cape 
 Mabou, close to the waters of the gulf. 
 
 The inhabitants of Inverness are already infected with 
 the spirit of enterprise, and have a gude conceit of them- 
 sel'. Take the following description by a local writer : 
 " Looking down upon this site, the town of Inverness, 
 much like a picture on the bottom of a piece of eighteenth 
 century crockery ware, you behold by night the electrically 
 bejewelled homeplace of about 4000 souls ; by day you 
 note that the erstwhile fir-thatched roof of the home of 
 the fairies is covered over with workshop and cottage, 
 
 p
 
 226 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 bankhead and power-house, halls, schools, and churches, the 
 homeplace of the modern fairy and his co-workers in other 
 avocations the homeplace of the hard-working, thrifty, 
 fearless and frugal coal-miner and his family." 
 
 Is not that wonderful ? And yet there are people 
 even Canadians who say Nova Scotia is not going ahead 
 fast enough ! 
 
 From Cheticamp, where is an old establishment of the 
 Jersey fishing firms, the coast becomes higher, barer, and 
 more rugged, and more dangerous to mariners, until Cape 
 Lawrence is reached. Of this coast it was said long ago : 
 " The north-west storms of November and December hurry 
 many a vessel on to this long straight lee-shore, where the 
 wretched crews, even if they effect a landing, wander in 
 ignorance of the course to be taken, until their limbs are 
 frozen, and they are obliged to resign themselves to their 
 fate. In some instances they have succeeded in reaching the 
 settlements to the southward, though eventually with the 
 loss of hands and feet. Often, however, the only record of 
 their distress is the discovery of their bones, whitening on 
 the shore.*' I am glad to say these tragedies are very in- 
 frequent nowadays, owing to a greater knowledge of the 
 coast and the interior, and also to the existence of settle- 
 ments hereabouts. The northern extremity of the island 
 is only eight miles wide, that being the distance between 
 Cape St. Lawrence and Cape North, the intervening shore 
 forming a crescent, the land southwards sloping down to 
 the water, and sheltered by the two capes. It is said to be 
 of good quality, and, indeed, agriculture and grazing are 
 not neglected there.
 
 A DANGEROUS CAPE 227 
 
 Cape North has been called the Watch Tower of the 
 Gulf of St. Lawrence, but this was before the Straits of 
 Belle Isle came to be so generally used. It is the northern- 
 most bulwark of New Scotland, a promontory two miles 
 wide, extending four miles into Cabot Strait. 
 
 Who, standing on the promontory of Cape North, can 
 look unmoved on that terrible island of St. Paul, which 
 looms up ten miles to the north-east ? This barren, rocky 
 isle shares with Cape Sable the infamy of having been the 
 grave of thousands of brave men. St. Paul, since the 
 erection of a suitable lighthouse, has been largely robbed of 
 its terrors for the living, but nothing can blot out the 
 memory of the past. I have now all but completed my 
 itinerary of New Scotland. From one extremity of the 
 peninsula to the other had I travelled and remarked the 
 people and the prospect. There is still an important corner, 
 where it joins the New Brunswick mainland, undescribed. 
 Let us retrace our steps.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 AMHERST 
 
 ONCE again we approach a district of memories the seat 
 of the long feud between French and English for the 
 mastery of Acadia. 
 
 In the county of Cumberland, on the south-western 
 side of the narrow isthmus severing the Bay of Fundy from 
 Northumberland Straits, and on the edge of the Province, 
 surrounded by marshes, is the small and flourishing town 
 of Amherst. Flourishes indeed, blossoms all the year 
 round with an unconquerable prosperity the very type 
 of " hustling," boosting, busy little town one sees in the 
 West, resolved never to look backward, and Mark Tapley 
 like, to be cheerful and smiling under any and all circum- 
 stances. Such is the little town on the little Amherst 
 River, named after the victor of Montreal, to whom the 
 French surrendered Canada. " Busy Amherst," as it likes 
 to proclaim itself, even on the sign at the railway station. 
 
 Amherst, I was told, " claimed a population of 8000." 
 The " claim " really turned out to be short of the truth, 
 perhaps to the surprise of Moncton and Frederickton across 
 the border. For after all, had it been an exaggeration, one 
 sees it is only a cheerful symptom and aspiration of growth. 
 Here you find growth must not be spiritual, or intellectual, 
 or artistic, but material. For has not the great apostle of 
 
 Imperialism in our time told Canada, " Get population and 
 
 328
 
 JOURNALISTIC AMENITIES 229 
 
 all these things will be added unto you." Of what value 
 are the doubters here ? And with what perplexity would 
 an Amherstian hearken to the plaint my ears have heard in 
 many English towns and villages, " Alas, I fear the town is 
 growing. It is no longer what it was." The vain sighers 
 after a London or a Bexborough, " small, white, and clean," 
 would meet with scant sympathy in Amherst. But 
 Amherst is still only in the first stages of its journey, 
 and it is still, with all its aspirations towards Pittsburg 
 or Lowell, still a pleasant country town filled with a 
 pleasant people intensely attached to Amherst. Even 
 politics are not taken seriously, otherwise how account 
 for that bewildering phenomenon which met my eyes on 
 the second floor of a handsome building in the heart of 
 the town. Can you conceive of Mr. Pott of the Eatans- 
 will Gazette and the editor of the Independent of the same 
 town, not merely dwelling in unity under the same roof, 
 but holding forth in the same office, even going to the 
 incredible extent of assisting one another in the stress of 
 production ! Yet this is the case of the editors of the 
 Amherst News, a Liberal organ, and the Amherst Courier, a 
 Conservative organ. What a lesson in professional amity ! 
 It is not as if party feeling did not run high in the press of 
 Nova Scotia. Alas, it runs as high and as tempestuously 
 as ever it did at Eatanswill, if one is to judge from the 
 columns of the two rival Halifax papers. One can imagine 
 the weary editor of the News saying one evening to the 
 editor of the Courier, " My dear sir, would you mind 
 finishing this editorial for me ? I am sorry I must run 
 away to keep an appointment. Just go on from this
 
 230 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 sentence : ' Borden, the leader of a discredited, dis- 
 heartened, and disorganised gang of Tory office-seekers, is 
 endeavouring to fling his disgraceful wiles over the Western 
 farmers, but ..." "I'll do it with pleasure," returns the 
 editor of the Courier. " Leave it to me, I see the point," 
 and taking up a pen he continues tranquilly, " but as the 
 News has long since pointed out in our merciless expos6 of 
 Tory methods and Tory prevarication, these tactics are only 
 laughed at by the sturdy commonsense yeomen of Manitoba, 
 Saskatchewan," &c., &c. Or, if it is the other way about, 
 the News man boldly (but merely professionally) declares in 
 the columns of the Courier that " Laurier and his renegade 
 troop may extract what satisfaction they like from the 
 howls and cheers of their Yankee, Armenian, Hungarian, 
 and Doukhobor supporters in the north-west who mas- 
 querade as loyal Britons and Free-traders, but who, as we 
 have so often shown," &c. 
 
 And upon reflection I am inclined to suspect that even 
 at Halifax, in the very thick of the party heat and storm, 
 the rival editors are not quite as truculent and vindictive 
 as one might gather from their charges and imputations ; 
 although perhaps nothing short of necessity such for 
 example as a loaded pistol at his head would induce the 
 editor of the Chronicle to edit the Herald, or vice versa. But, 
 you see, the Amherst editors are too busy booming their 
 town to regard Dominion or Provincial politics as anything 
 but an intellectual or social diversion. No one would 
 credit the articles they write about Amherst Amherst's 
 yesterday a good deal, Amherst's to-day a great deal, 
 Amherst's to-morrow a very great deal, I assure you. . . .
 
 AN INTERESTING COAL-MINE 231 
 
 Among the chief establishments here are car works, 
 engine and machine works, a large boot and shoe factory, 
 woollen mills, a coffin factory (fancy anything so suggestive 
 of mortality being associated with Amherst !), an iron 
 foundry, planing-mills, and saw-mills. Amherst seems to 
 have solved the problem of cheap power, being the first 
 to prove the practicability of Edison's notion of power 
 supplied direct from the mine. An enterprising company 
 here was the first on the Continent to fix a plant for the 
 generation of electricity at the mouth of a coal-mine, for 
 the purpose of distributing power to distant industries that 
 require it, and it is to be hoped that Amherst will ulti- 
 mately avail itself to the full of the advantages such 
 enterprise offers. The great power plant is situated at the 
 mouth of the Chignecto mines, about six miles from the 
 town. Coal from the shovels of the miners is carried in 
 cars to the surface and dumped into the screens, and the 
 screenings, hitherto looked upon as almost waste, are carried 
 in endless conveyors to immense bins, from whence they are 
 fed through chutes to the furnaces. With fuel so close at 
 hand, requiring no second handling, it is possible to generate 
 power at a low cost and transmit it to a territory included 
 in a radius of several square miles. The successful inaugu- 
 ration of this experiment elicited a prompt telegram of 
 congratulation from the great Edison. 
 
 It is worthy of remark that there is no vertical shaft at 
 Chignecto. The coal is hauled up a " slope," in trucks 
 containing 1500 Ibs. each, by a cable. When the trucks 
 reach the surface they continue the journey upon a similar 
 slope in the open air (built like a toboggan slide), until
 
 232 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 they reach the top of the bank-head. Here an elaborate 
 system of trucks and switches sends each truck exactly where 
 it is wanted, and its contents are mechanically dumped into 
 rockers and over screens, which accomplish marvels in the 
 way of " natural selection " before the good coal reaches the 
 railway cars below, waiting to receive it. The final process, 
 however, is an expert system of hand-picking, by which 
 slates and other impurities are removed without stopping 
 the progress of the coal for an instant. The slack or culm 
 is mechanically carried to holders in the boiler-room by 
 endless conveyors, where it is conveyed by gravitation to 
 mechanical stokers, thus obviating the necessity of the fuel 
 being handled in any way by human labour. 
 
 More substantial new buildings, either of brick or free- 
 stone, are built every year in Amherst the freestone here 
 being much in demand for building in other and distant 
 parts of Canada. I do not think the private residences 
 exhibit a very high taste, but they compare favourably 
 with those of other parts of the Province. Nova Scotia, as 
 I have already more than hinted, is, with all its natural 
 beauties, hardly an architectural paradise. 
 
 The country surrounding Amherst is flat and marshy, 
 but interesting, both scenically and historically. A century 
 and a half ago Amherst was the French Acadian settle- 
 ment of Beaubassin, and who that has ever read Parkman's 
 narrative can forget Fort Lawrence and Beausejour ? 
 
 When Louisbourg and Cape Breton were restored to 
 France by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, the 
 British Government sought to offset this blunder by the 
 English settlement of Nova Scotia. A proclamation was
 
 ABBE LE LOUTRE 233 
 
 issued offering all officers and private men retired from the 
 army or navy, and to many others, a free passage to Nova 
 Scotia, besides supporting them for a year after landing, and 
 giving them arms, ammunition, and a grant of land to build 
 a dwelling. Parliament having voted 40,000, in the summer 
 of 1749 more than 2500 settlers, with their families, arrived 
 at Chebucto, forthwith rechristened in honour of the Earl 
 of Halifax. 
 
 The commander of the expedition and the chief of the 
 new colony was Colonel Edward Cornwallis, a man both 
 able and lovable. One of Cornwallis's first cares was this 
 very Acadian district of Beaubassin. 
 
 Some 13,000 Frenchmen were at this time settled in 
 some ten villages in Acadia. To the northward the French 
 had built a fort of five bastions, which they called Beause- 
 jour, and another one much similar at Baie Verte. Their 
 idea was to keep up communication with Louisbourg until 
 they could strike a blow against the English and get back 
 Acadia again into their own hands. 
 
 Soon after Cornwallis's arrival he issued a proclamation 
 in French and English to the French Acadians calling upon 
 them to assist his new settlers. He did not fail to remind 
 them that while they had so long enjoyed possession of their 
 lands and the free exercise of their religion, they had been 
 secretly aiding King George's enemies. But this would be 
 condoned if they would at once take the oath of allegiance 
 as British subjects. 
 
 It was at Fort Beaus6jour that the priestly fanatic Le 
 Loutre laboured to create dissatisfaction and sow the seeds 
 of revolt amongst the thrifty, ignorant Acadians, who
 
 234 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 otherwise would have been happy and contented. Their 
 minds filled with Le Loutre's threats and promises, they 
 refused to take the oath of allegiance, and even to supply 
 the English settlers with labour, timber, or provisions, 
 though good prices for these were offered. Cornwallis 
 warned them. ** You will allow yourselves," he said, ** to 
 be led away by people who find it to their interest to lead 
 you astray. It is only out of pity for your situation and 
 your inexperience in the ways of government that we con- 
 descend to reason with you, otherwise the question would 
 not be reasoning, but commanding and being obeyed." 
 
 He told them that they had been for more than thirty- 
 four years the subjects of the King of Great Britain. " Show 
 now that you are grateful for his favours and ready to serve 
 your King when your services are required. Manage to let 
 me have here, in ten days, fifty of your people to assist the 
 poor to build their houses to shelter them from the bad 
 weather. They shall be paid in ready money and fed on 
 the King's provisions." 
 
 Le Loutre, disregarding all this warning and exhorta- 
 tion, aroused the native Indians of the province, the 
 Micmacs, against the English newcomers. He despatched 
 them stealthily to slay and to destroy. Twenty Englishmen 
 were surprised and captured at Canso while gathering hay. 
 Eight Indians, pretending to barter furs, went on board 
 two English ships and tried to surprise them. Several 
 of the sailors were killed. A sawmill had been built near 
 Halifax. Six unsuspecting men went out unarmed to 
 hew some timber. Of these four were killed and scalped, 
 and one was captured. So frequent became the Indian
 
 FORT BEAUSEJOUR 235 
 
 attacks that the men of Halifax formed themselves into a 
 militia, and a sentry paced the streets every night. Corn- 
 wallis offered ^100 for the head of Le Loutre. Ten guineas 
 were offered for an Indian, living or dead, or for his scalp. 
 
 To build a fort to counterbalance the Fort Beausejour 
 of the French was imperative. The latter was situated on 
 the western bank of a little stream called the Missaguash, 
 
 O ' 
 
 which the French claimed as the boundary between Canada 
 and Acadia. Opposite, near Beaubassin, Colonel Lawrence 
 was sent with 400 men to build the English fort. Le 
 Loutre and his Acadians did their utmost to prevent the 
 English landing and building the fort, which was christened 
 Fort Lawrence. The commander of this post, Captain 
 Howe, reasoned with the stubborn Acadians, many of 
 whom perceived the good sense of his arguments and ac- 
 knowledged his good influence. One bright autumn day 
 a Frenchman in the dress of an officer advanced to the 
 opposite side of the stream waving a white handker- 
 chief. Howe, ever polite, advanced to meet him. As he 
 did so, some Indians, who were in ambuscade pointed their 
 guns at him and shot him dead. La Corne, the French 
 commandant, was filled with shame and horror at this 
 dastardly murder. He would like to have got rid of 
 Le Loutre, but the priest was too strong for him. His 
 influence with the Quebec authorities was great, and the 
 Acadian people dreaded Le Loutre's fierce anger. 
 
 Notwithstanding, there were a number of Acadians who 
 consented to take the oath of allegiance to King George. 
 When the French Governor at Quebec was apprised of 
 this he issued a proclamation that all Acadians must
 
 236 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 either swear loyalty to France and be enrolled in the 
 Canadian militia, or suffer the penalty of fire and sword. 
 By way of rejoinder, the English Governor of Nova Scotia 
 declared that if any Acadian taking the oath of allegi- 
 ance to King George should afterwards be found fighting 
 amongst the French soldiers, he would be shot. Thus 
 were the unhappy Acadians between two fires. A con- 
 siderable number removed their settlements to the Canadian 
 side of the boundary. Some travelled even as far as 
 Quebec. But the majority who remained continued to 
 cause great anxiety to the English authorities in Nova 
 Scotia. 
 
 In 1754 the French contemplated an invasion of Nova 
 Scotia, much to the alarm of Halifax, knowing that in the 
 absence of the English fleet Louisbourg could send a force 
 in a few hours to overrun the country. Were not the 
 Acadians there to furnish provisions to the French invaders, 
 and in forty-eight hours 15,000 armed Acadians could be 
 collected at Fort Beausejour. The outlying English forts 
 would be destroyed, and Halifax starved into surrender. 
 With New Scotland reduced, New England would be the 
 next victim. Lawrence and Governor Shirley of Massa- 
 chusetts, taking counsel together, resolved to strike a blow 
 instantly before troops from France or Quebec could arrive, 
 and drive the French out of the isthmus. Two thousand 
 men were raised, and the command given to an English 
 officer, Colonel Monckton. On the ist June 1755 the 
 English war-party arrived here in Chignecto Bay. 
 
 As commandant at Fort Beausejour one Vergor had 
 succeeded La Corne. When he saw the English ships
 
 FORT LAWRENCE TO-DAY 237 
 
 approach, Vergor issued a proclamation to the neighbour- 
 ing Acadians to hasten to his defence. Fifteen hundred 
 responded, and three hundred of these he took into the 
 fort. The others he ordered to retire into the woods and 
 stealthily harass the enemy. 
 
 When the bombardment was at its height, and Vergor 
 was hourly expecting help from Louisbourg, a letter arrived 
 to say that assistance could not come from that quarter. 
 An English squadron was cruising in front of Louisbourg 
 harbour, and the French frigates were thereby prevented 
 from putting out to sea. 
 
 The Acadians became disheartened, and in spite of 
 threats deserted by dozens. One morning at breakfast a 
 shell from an English mortar crashed through the ceiling 
 of a casemate, killing three French officers and an English 
 captain who had been taken prisoner. Vergor saw that he 
 had begun to strengthen his fort too late. There was now 
 no hope the guns of the English were too near. He de- 
 spatched a flag of truce and surrendered Fort Beausejour. 
 
 Having got Fort Beausejour (renamed Fort Cumber- 
 land) into his hands, Monckton summoned another French 
 stronghold at Baie Verte to surrender. The commandant 
 complied, and the campaign was over. The danger to 
 English settlers in Nova Scotia was removed for ever. 
 
 From the portals of the excellently appointed Marsh- 
 land Club in Amherst I set out in a Canadian-built car 
 with a friend, an ex-member of the Dominion Parliament, 
 to pay a visit to Fort Lawrence and Fort Beausejour 
 household words to a Canadian boy versed in even the 
 rudiments of his country's stirring history. We had some
 
 238 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 difficulty in finding the exact site of Colonel Lawrence's 
 fort, which has wholly disappeared. 
 
 Yet odd to relate, a prosperous farmer named Lawrence 
 occupies the ground, and upon the site of the old com- 
 mandant's house his dwelling is built. At the time of 
 my visit a youth was actively engaged with a scythe in 
 a field where Lawrence's artillery was placed, the breast- 
 works having long been levelled. Bullets and other relics 
 were occasionally picked up. A couple of the cannon I 
 afterwards saw in use as gate-posts before a private house 
 in Amherst. My friend deplored with me the indifference 
 of the New Scotlanders, and especially the people of 
 Amherst, to their historic shrines the spots where the 
 deeds in Canada's story were wrought which make of 
 the Canadian people a free people to-day. I was delighted 
 to hear him say, " Every stone, every brick, belonging to 
 our days of struggle should be a priceless memento worth 
 its weight in gold." For I knew that when such sentiment 
 finds utterance on the lips of one good man the root of 
 the matter is there, the idea will flourish, and the fruit 
 will in good season appear. 
 
 On we went to Beausejour, on the other side of the 
 Missaguash. Here ruins very similar to those at Louis- 
 bourg meets the eye, solid casements and bastions which 
 have resisted the tooth of time, and where now cattle 
 browse peacefully. One of the longest structures, the 
 Governor's house, solidly built of stone, is now a veritable 
 cattle-shed, in which I counted ten cows herded closely 
 together. But the view across the marshes and Cumber- 
 land Basin, across to the Elysian fields and the distant
 
 TIIK SITK OF FORT LAWKKNCK.
 
 FIFTY YEARS AGO 239 
 
 Cobequid mountains, was entrancing. The foreground was 
 bathed in golden sunshine, the background seemed pale 
 purple, as of a mist, while overhead mighty picturesque 
 masses of creamy cumulus cloud rolled like a full sail 
 of some divine argosy. A great dismantled wooden 
 mansion, built in pretentious Georgian style, caught my 
 eye a stone-throw from the fort, dating probably from the 
 Fort Cumberland period, and I bent my steps towards it. 
 
 I have never before viewed such complete desolation 
 and decay, the result merely of age and neglect, and not 
 of fire or earthquake. One step within the portals con- 
 vinced me that to venture further would be to endanger 
 life and to invite the instant collapse of the whole edifice, 
 whose every beam and rafter trembled on the brink of utter 
 destruction. And yet because the house, though expen- 
 sively built, was built of wood, there was nothing venerable 
 about it or dignified it rather inspired contempt, as of a 
 dissipated old rogue, whose vices had wrecked his constitu- 
 tion, and was ready to tumble into the gutter. Eager as I 
 am for the preservation of ancient monuments, it was with 
 something like relief that I reflected that this rollicking old 
 ruin was on the other side of the New Scotland frontier. 
 
 Twenty miles from Amherst is Joggins, the centre of 
 the Cumberland county coal-fields, which begin at Maccan. 
 I have not the slightest idea who Joggins was, but I feel 
 certain that were he alive to-day he would have every 
 reason to feel proud of the growth and prosperity of his 
 name-place. The output of coal here is very large. The 
 Joggins shore extends along Chignecto Bay, with imposing 
 cliffs, occasionally three or four hundred feet high. Here
 
 240 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 are exposed some wonderful petrified forests and sections of 
 carboniferous strata, which have been visited and described 
 by scientists of such eminence as Sir Charles Lyell, Sir 
 William Dawson, and Sir William Logan. 
 
 The coal area extends inland without a break forty or 
 fifty miles to the neighbourhood of Oxford, the most 
 important colliery being at Springhill, where the annual 
 output is over half a million tons. 
 
 From an old resident I got an interesting purview of 
 this part of New Scotland in the early '6o's. Half a century 
 ago the whole district, from the mouth of the river Philip 
 to the upper waters of that river, was known as " River 
 Philip." Neighbouring settlements bore distinctive names, 
 such as " Mount Pleasant," now Centreville, " Moores," 
 now Rockley, " Goose River," now Linden, and " Little 
 River," which still retains its name. 
 
 Four post-offices, kept generally in trunks, served the 
 commercial and social wants of the whole length of the 
 river. They were listed as " Mouth of the River," some- 
 where on the post road between Pugwash and Amherst. 
 " Head of Tide," now Oxford. River Philip Corner," 
 where the old road from Amherst to Londonderry crosses 
 the river, and " Upper River Philip," where at that time 
 one Rufus Black, one of Samuel Slick's hosts, carried 
 on an extensive lumbering and mercantile business. There 
 were no railways nearer than Truro on the one side 
 and Moncton on the other. The only prophetic sugges- 
 tion of the present Intercolonial Railway was a stretch of 
 embankment somewhere on the Nappan marshes, which 
 had been thrown up in some spasmodic, perhaps electioneer-
 
 PARRSBORO 241 
 
 ing, effort, in the days when Joseph Howe was strenuously 
 contending for an " Inter-Provincial," " All British " line 
 from Halifax to Quebec. 
 
 What is now the town of Springhill, with a population 
 of 5700, was then a sparsely-settled farming district on the 
 foothills of the mountain, with, perhaps, ten or fifteen 
 farm residences in the whole section, the most important of 
 which was the old " Nathan Boss " place, as a stopping- 
 place on the road between river Philip and Parrsboro, 
 where travellers frequently took passage by sailing packet, 
 from Parrsboro to Windsor, and thence to Halifax by rail. 
 
 At Springhill, the coal areas, then almost unknown and 
 undeveloped, were held by the " Old English Mining 
 Association." One pit, or more correctly speaking, a hole 
 in the ground, was operated in a small way, the coal being 
 raised by horse-power and distributed to consumers in 
 adjacent districts by horse and cart. The thing was but an 
 experiment, and the consumption, even for a small district, 
 was very limited, as the best of hard wood existed in 
 abundance for fuel. 
 
 At Athol one may motor or take a regular stage-coach 
 across the isthmus by a beautiful road to Parrsboro on the 
 Basin of Minas, or one may take the Cumberland Railway 
 at Springhill Junction, distant thirty-two miles from Parrs- 
 boro. I found Parrsboro but little changed from my last 
 visit. To my mind it is one of the pleasantest little towns 
 in the whole of Nova Scotia, and is visited by many 
 summer tourists who appreciate the fishing, shooting, 
 boating, and beautiful scenery to be had hereabouts. The 
 harbour is sheltered by Partridge Island, a pleasant head- 
 
 Q
 
 242 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 land hard by, upon which a hotel is built, and from which 
 there are pretty views of the Basin and neighbourhood. 
 Parrsboro is a lumber port, handling nearly all the product 
 of the southern forests of Cumberland as Pugwash does 
 on the north. To the north and west of Parrsboro some 
 of the best moose hunting in New Scotland is to be had, 
 while partridge, geese, brant ducks, and other marine birds 
 are abundant. A few miles behind me the Cobequid Hills, 
 a long range running east and west from Cape Chignecto 
 to north of Cobequid Bay. 
 
 From Parrsboro, where there is a good deal of shipping, 
 a steamer plies across the Basin of Minas to Kingsport, 
 Hantsport, and Windsor, and another to St. John. Indeed 
 it is only eight or ten miles across the Basin, whereas it is 
 ten times that distance round by land. 
 
 On my return journey to Halifax, I must not forget 
 to record that I enjoyed the privilege of a spirited conver- 
 sation in pidgin English with a Canton Chinaman, who 
 smoked a large cigar, and wore a queue under his Panama hat. 
 
 Odd as this Far East of Canada seems as a habitat for 
 Chinamen, yet there is hardly a town or village where Wun 
 Lung, or Sam Kee, or John Sing has not penetrated, and set 
 up his peculiar and odoriferous little establishment for the 
 destruction of linen. It is one of the curiosities of in- 
 dustry why the Chinese should have taken to this particular 
 occupation. It began in the Far West, when the affluent 
 miner and rancher, discovering the merits of a boiled shirt on 
 Sundays, and that a glazed front and collar is an additional 
 mark of gentility, sent his linen all the way to 'Frisco. 
 Then up rose the wily heathen to hit upon another use for
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 243 
 
 the rice flour of his native larder, and thereby gratify, at ten 
 cents the garment, the vanity of the early Argonauts. The 
 art he communicated to others of his race, it spread north, 
 south, east, and west, and in the process of time one hundred 
 thousand flat-irons were actuating from Los Angeles to 
 Labrador. Thus was the immediate industrial future of 
 the invading Mongol assured. 
 
 The Legislature was not in session at the time of my 
 visit to Halifax. But I met in a friendly way many of the 
 legislators, and I learnt a good deal of the local needs, real 
 or fancied, which agitate this community and all other 
 communities on the face of the earth, but which are of 
 little interest to the outside world. Considering that the 
 population of the Province is only half a million souls, the 
 machinery of government would seem somewhat cumbrous. 
 First of all, Nova Scotia sends 20 members to the Federal 
 House of Commons at Ottawa, and 10 members to the 
 Senate. The Provincial Parliament consists of 38 members : 
 there is a Legislative Council of 21 members and an Ex- 
 ecutive Council of 10 members. Moreover, there is a system 
 of local government operating in the eighteen counties. 
 
 The Federal Parliament alone deals with such important 
 matters as revenue duties, railway grants, the judiciary and 
 the postal system, leaving to the Halifax Legislature the 
 schools, public roads and bridges, local railways, and the 
 royalties on minerals owned by the Province. The County 
 and Township Councils regulate the taxation for roads, 
 schools, and other purposes, every citizen directly voting 
 his own taxation, although such taxes are supplemented by 
 grants from the Provincial Government, which has a unique 
 and perennial source of wealth in the mining royalties.
 
 244 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 Although the Legislature and Council is so numerous, 
 the real labour of the Executive really falls upon two or 
 three pairs of shoulders chiefly those of the Premier and 
 the Attorney-General and the Commissioner of Works and 
 Mines. Although the Hon. George Henry Murray, K.C., 
 is only fifty, he has been the First Minister of the Crown 
 in New Scotland for sixteen years, succeeding Mr. Fielding 
 when the latter joined the Laurier Cabinet in 1896. Mr. 
 Murray is one of those politicians who, like his party chief, 
 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, exhibits prudence and probity in power, 
 and having the honour of his country at heart fully enjoys 
 the confidence of the people. 
 
 Under his political leadership, which is not likely to be 
 disturbed, save by considerations of health, now, I was glad 
 to find, no longer imminent, the fortunes of both land and 
 people are certain to advance hopefully into the future. 
 
 Considering its unrivalled water-power facilities, New 
 Scotland might easily become a great manufacturing country, 
 as New England has long been. Manufacturing has made 
 considerable progress in recent years ; but the Province 
 only occupies the third place in manufactures, Ontario 
 and Quebec far outstripping her. There are now some 
 twelve hundred establishments, with a total capital, in- 
 cluding lands, building, machinery and motive power, tools 
 and implements, and working capital, of 34,586,416 dollars, 
 paying out 4,395,618 dollars in wages to 21,010 men, 
 women, and children. 1 
 
 1 Nova Scotia puts a very small tax on its industries. The total pro- 
 vincial and municipal taxes on manufacturing industries in the census year 
 were but 73,276 dollars, and of this only 2566 dollars augmented the revenue 
 of the Province,
 
 CONCLUSION 245 
 
 The products of Nova Scotia's manufactories were 
 63,700,000 dollars in 1911. These included food pro- 
 ducts, textiles, iron and steel products, paper and printing, 
 liquors and beverages, chemicals and allied products, clay, 
 glass and stone products, metals and their products, tobacco, 
 vehicles for land, vessels for water, and miscellaneous in- 
 dustries. The value of the manufactured products in Nova 
 Scotia has more than doubled in a single decade, and to 
 this result the increased output in connection with the iron 
 and steel industries has of course greatly contributed. 
 
 The province's position now may well be called, in 
 respect to the establishment of manufacturing industries, 
 truly strategic. Her situation on the ocean highway en- 
 ables her to assemble all the raw materials cheaply, and to 
 manufacture at lowest cost for the home and foreign 
 market. Here are the only coal-fields in Eastern Canada, 
 those on the seaboard being practically inexhaustible. Pig- 
 iron from the increasing furnaces of the Province has 
 already been exported to markets distributed along the 
 whole seaboard of the United States, to most parts of 
 the world, and to some parts of Germany. Gold, steel, 
 gypsum, pulp for paper manufacturing, grindstones, build- 
 ing stones, timber, fish, fruit, and many manufactured 
 goods are exported abroad. Nova Scotia's ships for 200 
 years frequented the ports of the world, and carried on a 
 thriving and ever increasing trade. 
 
 All this abundance of coal, and other minerals, com- 
 bined with her geographical position in relation to Great 
 Britain and Europe, the North Atlantic Coast of America, 
 the West Indies, and South America, leaves no room for
 
 246 NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 doubt that the Province is destined to become one of the 
 great manufacturing centres of the world. 
 
 " I don't know what more you'd ask," cried Sam Slick ; 
 " almost an island, indented everywhere with harbours, 
 surrounded with fisheries. The key of the St. Lawrence, 
 the Bay of Fundy, and the West Indgies ; prime land above, 
 one vast mineral bed beneath, and a climate over all tem- 
 perate, pleasant and healthy. If that ain't enough for 
 one place, it's a pity that's all." 
 
 And so I part from this little book about New Scot- 
 land an imperfect survey, but not intended to be com- 
 pendious ; only that to the British reader, willing to know 
 something of the people, the land, and the resources of 
 our great Western Dominion, a new Province may, like the 
 film pictures of a cinematograph, " swim into his ken." 
 
 More and more will the Nova Scotians increase in 
 culture as in wealth, more and more will their country 
 become a great Imperial asset. To apply here to New 
 Scotland a famous passage of Froude's concerning the 
 story of Old Scotland, turn where one may, ** weakness 
 is nowhere ; power, energy, and will are everywhere. 
 Sterile as the landscape where it will first unfold itself, we 
 shall watch the current winding its way with expanding 
 force and features of enlarging magnificence, till at length 
 the rocks and rapids will have passed the stream will have 
 glided down into the plain to the meeting of the waters 
 from which as from a new fountain the united fortunes of 
 the British Empire flow on to their unknown destiny."
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 TO ENCOURAGE SETTLEMENT ON FARM 
 LANDS IN NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 THE following interesting measure became law during the 1912 
 session of the Nova Scotia Legislature. Further particulars respect- 
 ing its operation may be obtained from Mr. Arthur S. Barnstead, 
 Secretary of Industries and Immigration, 197 Hollis Street, Halifax, 
 and Mr. J. Howard, Agent-General, 5yA Pall Mall, London, S.W. 
 
 AN ACT FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF SETTLEMENT ON 
 FARM LANDS 
 
 Whereas, it is desirable that agricultural settlement should be 
 further promoted in this Province, and that facilities should be 
 afforded whereby settlers will be encouraged to purchase or acquire 
 for themselves farm holdings : 
 
 And whereas, there are in the Province farms unoccupied and 
 unfilled, arable tracts not yet brought under cultivation, and other 
 lands available for settlement and suitable therefor : 
 
 And whereas, it is desirable to settle on those lands selected 
 farmers from the British Isles or elsewhere, who wish to acquire 
 lands of their own, but are unable to do so, and it is further desirable 
 to give assistance in the purchase of farms to those who are already 
 engaged in or desire to engage in agriculture within the Province 
 who possess the necessary qualifications : 
 
 And whereas, there are in the British Isles and elsewhere many 
 men with practical experience in farming, who might be induced 
 
 247
 
 248 APPENDIX A 
 
 with advantage both to themselves and to the Province to settle in 
 Nova Scotia, or to return to this Province, if previously resident here, 
 provided facilities are available that will assist them, in the purchase 
 of farm land and buildings by way of loans or mortgages ; 
 
 Therefore be it enacted by the Governor, Council and Assembly 
 as follows : 
 
 Interpretation. 
 
 1. In this Chapter, unless the context otherwise requires, the 
 words "loan company" or "trust company" mean any loan 
 company or companies, or loan society, carrying on the business 
 within the Province of Nova Scotia of lending money on mortgages 
 of real estate. 
 
 The word " farmer " includes persons who have removed, or who 
 contemplate removing to this Province from other places, to settle in 
 this Province and engage in farming, and other persons who may 
 already be engaged or about to engage in farming in this Province. 
 
 The word "inspector" means any inspector or assistant in- 
 spector appointed by the Governor-in-Council under the provisions 
 of this Act. 
 
 2. Whenever a loan company will agree, upon receiving the 
 guarantee herein mentioned, to advance to a farmer on mortgage of 
 farm lands and buildings thereon on terms approved by the 
 Governor-in-Council, an amount not exceeding eighty per cent, of 
 the value of such farm lands and buildings as appraised by such loan 
 company, the Governor-in-Council upon such appraisement being 
 confirmed by the inspector, and upon receiving a report from the 
 inspector, is empowered from time to time to authorise the Pro- 
 vincial Secretary or Deputy Provincial Secretary to give a guarantee 
 in writing to such loan company against loss on any such mortgage 
 to an amount not exceeding the difference between fifty per cent, of 
 such appraised value and the amount of the loan, together with
 
 APPENDIX A 249 
 
 interest thereon. Such guarantee may be in the form in the 
 Schedule to this Act, or to the like effect. 
 
 3. Whenever a loan company will agree to advance to a farmer 
 on a first mortgage of farm lands and buildings thereon, on terms 
 approved by the Governor-in-Council, an amount up to at least fifty 
 per cent, of the value of such farm lands and buildings as appraised 
 by such loan company, the Governor-in-Council upon such appraise- 
 ment being confirmed by the inspector and upon receiving a report 
 from the inspector, may arrange with such loan company to advance 
 to such persons through such loan company out of funds provided 
 for the purpose an additional amount not exceeding the difference 
 between fifty per cent, and eighty per cent, of such appraised value, 
 provided that this additional amount of advance on any one loan 
 shall not exceed the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars. 
 
 4. All repayments of principal made on any mortgage given 
 under the provisions of the next two preceding sections of this Act 
 shall be first applied by the loan company making the same, towards 
 the reduction of any Government guarantee or advance ; provided 
 that the Governor-in-Council may agree to defer the repayment by 
 the farmer of the instalments of principal and interest on the 
 additional amount loaned or guaranteed by the Governor-in-Council, 
 under the preceding sections, for a period not to exceed five years 
 from the time of effecting the loan. 
 
 5. The Governor-in-Council may appoint an inspector or 
 inspectors to appraise and report on farm lands and buildings thereon, 
 and to perform such other duties as may be delegated by the 
 Governor-in-Council. The Governor-in-Council may also appoint 
 such assistant inspectors and other officers, assistants and persons, as 
 may be necessary for the carrying out of the provisions of this Act, 
 and may prescribe their duties and may fix the salaries, compensation 
 or fees of any person appointed under the provisions of this section. 
 
 6. The Governor-in-Council is authorised from time to time to 
 purchase real estate in farming districts, sub-divide it into farms or
 
 250 APPENDIX A 
 
 lots, erect buildings and fences, prepare the land for crops and sell 
 said real estate to farmers in such parcels or lots and on such terms 
 as may be approved by the Governor-in-Council. 
 
 7. The Governor-in-Council may make regulations for the 
 carrying out effectively the provisions of this Act. 
 
 8. The Governor-in-Council is authorised to borrow on the 
 credit of the Province, a sum not exceeding two hundred thousand 
 dollars, for the purpose of providing a fund for the purposes of 
 this Act. 
 
 9. The Provincial Secretary shall make an annual report to the 
 Legislature of all loans effected and the terms thereof. 
 
 Schedule. 
 
 In the matter of Chapter , Acts 1912. 
 
 The Province of Nova Scotia hereby guarantees the payment 
 
 of , principal to the extent of $ of 
 
 a mortgage from (name of farmers) to (name of 
 
 Loan Company) on the lands hereinafter described, and interest 
 thereon provided that all repayments of principal on said mortgage 
 shall be first applied towards the reduction of the amount so 
 guaranteed. 
 
 The said lands are described as follows, that is to say : (descrip- 
 tion). 
 
 Dated at Halifax, N. S., the day of 
 
 A. D., 19. ... 
 
 Provincial Secretary.
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 SPORT IN NOVA SCOTIA 
 
 IT is a little singular that although Nova Scotia is one of the most 
 interesting and prolific sporting countries in the world, it has 
 attracted so few British tourists. It certainly offers abundance of 
 game and fish, and when it is made easily accessible, thousands of 
 Englishmen might profitably spend a happy, bracing holiday there. It 
 is celebrated for the greatest of the deer family, the moose, which 
 was killed last year in nearly every county in the Province, 1 and the 
 
 1 Moose Killed in Nova Scotia. 
 
 County. 
 
 Number. 
 
 Bulls. 
 
 Cows. 
 
 Sex not 
 Given. 
 
 Killed in 
 1907. 
 
 Annapolis 
 
 1 06 
 
 52 
 
 48 
 
 6 
 
 54 
 
 Colchester 
 
 29 
 
 ii 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 21 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 21 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 Digby . 
 
 42 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 i 
 
 25 
 
 Guysboro 
 
 61 
 
 35 
 
 22 
 
 4 
 
 4 8 
 
 Hants 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 IO 
 
 I 
 
 H 
 
 Halifax . 
 
 I5i 
 
 72 
 
 62 
 
 17 
 
 r 53 
 
 King's 
 
 IS 
 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 Lunenburg 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 i 
 
 24 
 
 Queen's . 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 i 
 
 7 
 
 Pictou 
 
 47 
 
 28 
 
 12 
 
 7 
 
 49 
 
 Shelburne 
 
 30 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 33 
 
 Yarmouth 
 
 47 
 
 26 
 
 20 
 
 I 
 
 40 
 
 Total 
 
 590 
 
 300 
 
 24O 
 
 50 
 
 486 
 
 Adding to these about 100 that were not reported, owing to a misunder- 
 standing of the new law, and another 100 probably killed illegally and never 
 reported, we arrive at a total of some 800 moose killed in Nova Scotia 
 during the autumn.
 
 252 APPENDIX B 
 
 species is steadily increasing in numbers, thanks to a stricter carrying 
 out of the game law. The woodcock shooting in Nova Scotia is 
 celebrated, and the ruffed grouse (partridge), the king of game 
 birds, was killed last year in unprecedented numbers ; while in the 
 countries to the south of us its gradual decrease has been bitterly 
 mourned. Duck and geese are abundant in some districts. Bear 
 and wild-cat are plentiful, too plentiful in fact, though hard to 
 approach. Hares offer a fine opportunity for the beagles. 
 
 As for fishing, in no country in the world are trout more 
 plentiful nor more gamey, and one variety, the sa/ve/inus fortina/is t 
 or speckled brook-trout, is the most beautiful of all. There is 
 good salmon-fishing, which is likely to become better still, as 
 public opinion is awakening to the dangerous breaches of the law 
 on the part of the net-fishermen at the mouths of the streams. 
 
 According to the Nova Scotia Game Act (1909), the Moose 
 season is from September i6th to November i6th. Moose are 
 hunted in two ways, "calling" and "still-hunting." Calling is 
 the method almost exclusively pursued in the mating time, which 
 lasts approximately from the first week in September to the 2Oth of 
 October. It consists in luring the bull-moose within rifle-shot by 
 means of imitating, through a speaking-horn of birch-bark, the call, 
 or low, of the cow, or sometimes, though much seldomer, the 
 challenge of a rival bull. This can be done only in absolutely 
 calm weather, since the bull, which trusts for its safety to its 
 abnormal sense of smell, will otherwise infallibly go to leeward of 
 the hunter, get his scent, and then, of course, retire without 
 showing itself. A calm is also necessary if the sound of the call 
 is to penetrate to any distance. A certain class of writers, nearly 
 all inexperienced, have decried the method of calling as unsports- 
 manlike, insisting that it is an easy art, that the moose is off its 
 guard and all too ready to be fooled, and that the guide does all 
 the work, while the hunter merely waits and shoots when the 
 quarry appears. There are many fallacies in this view. Calling 
 is not an easy art, the bull is by no means off its guard, but just 
 the very contrary ; and the argument against the secondary rdle of the
 
 APPENDIX B 253 
 
 sportsman might also be applied to bird-shooting over dogs. It is 
 very fascinating to witness the art of the guide as he calls a moose, 
 and there are moments, as the bull approaches and appears, that 
 still-hunting cannot match for excitement. Besides, there is no law 
 against the sportsman doing the calling himself, if he has a mind, 
 and many have attempted it successfully after some years of 
 experience with good callers. 
 
 When the moose have paired, the bull can no longer be called, 
 and the method employed for the rest of the season is that of still- 
 hunting, or stalking (creeping up to) the animals under cover of 
 a wind while they are in their " yards," a yard being the range, of 
 greater or less extent, covered by one moose-family during the late 
 autumn and winter. It commonly consists of a combination of 
 swamp and ridge, though this differs according to the character of 
 the country. The ideal conditions for approaching the game are 
 a high wind and soft-going underfoot, either soaked with rain, or 
 better, covered with light snow, which makes tracking much 
 easier. Still-hunting requires much more physical exertion on the 
 part of the hunter, and is not recommended to ladies, or in fact any 
 but the robust. Still-hunting gets better as the season approaches 
 its end. 
 
 The caribou is a cousin of the European reindeer, and ranges 
 from Maine and Newfoundland northward and northwestward to 
 Hudson Bay and the Pacific. There are two general species, the 
 woodland and the barren-ground, the latter inhabiting the regions 
 farther north. The woodland caribou (rangifer caribou) is the 
 largest of its kind, and once overran the whole of Nova Scotia, but 
 is now practically confined to the island of Cape Breton, where it is 
 still plentiful. A very large specimen weighs about 400 Ibs., and 
 stands four feet high at the shoulders. The peculiar construction of 
 the caribou's hoofs enables it to travel easily over snow into which 
 any other of the deer family would sink helplessly. It is polygamous, 
 one bull possessing several cows. 
 
 It is killed by still-hunting. The outfit is the same as for moose, 
 with the addition of a good field-glass.
 
 254 APPENDIX B 
 
 The caribou is protected by the Nova Scotia law until 1912. 
 
 Bruin's representative in Nova Scotia is the Black Bear or 
 Ursus americanus, a large specimen of which will weigh about 400 
 Ibs. It will eat anything from ants to sheep, and has a predilection 
 for calf-moose, many of these helpless little creatures falling victims 
 to his voracity, in spite of the mother's defence. A bear will 
 almost never face a man, but a mother with young cubs forms 
 a distinct exception to this rule, and should an unarmed sportsman 
 meet such a combination in the woods, the best thing for him 
 is not to wait for a nearer introduction. The only practical way to 
 hunt bears systematically is by means of a good bear-hound (fox- 
 hound trained to this work), which tracks Bruin to his den. Bears 
 are often met by accident and shot, and in this Province they 
 have a way of coming to a moose-caller, hoping for a meal of calf. 
 Many are trapped, sometimes in a large dead-fall, but usually in a 
 steel Newhouse bear-trap, so placed that the bear must walk over 
 the trap to get at the bait, which is either of meat or a bundle of 
 trout, soaked sometimes in molasses or honey. In some counties 
 there is a bounty of $2 on bears, which might be made general 
 throughout the Province. 
 
 Wild-cats are very numerous and play havoc with game-birds 
 and hares, as well as with the farmer's lambs. There is there- 
 fore a bounty of $i on them in some counties. The wild-cat (lynx 
 rufusy bay lynx or bobcat) is a strong, savage, and exceedingly shy 
 animal, almost never seen unless tracked and brought to bay by 
 trained hounds, or when caught in traps or snares. A very large 
 one will weigh 40 Ibs. and measure four feet from tail to nose. 
 Its pelt makes a pretty mat. In spite of all backwoods traditions, 
 there is no record of a wild-cat attacking a man. 
 
 Nova Scotia offers excellent game-bird shooting, the three classes 
 of wild-fowl, forest-birds, and shore-birds or waders, being well 
 represented. They comprise wild ducks, geese, ruffed grouse 
 (partridge), woodcock, snipe, plover, yellowlegs, sandpiper, curlew, 
 and others. The best places and seasons for these birds may be 
 ascertained at the Capital.
 
 APPENDIX B 255 
 
 At present in Nova Scotia there is a tendency to protect game- 
 birds of all kinds, and on that account non-residents are required to 
 pay the same license for shooting them as for moose, $30, a tax the 
 size of which is not conducive to the encouragement of visiting bird- 
 hunters. 
 
 FISHING. Along the entire shore of Nova Scotia the usual 
 salt-water fish may be caught in abundance, such as cod, pollock, 
 perch, flounders, &c., but neither the native nor the visitor has 
 as yet paid much attention to the big game fishes that occupy so 
 much of the angler's time farther south. Two of these are among 
 the choicest there are, the striped bass and the leaping tuna, though 
 the latter is not eaten on this side of the Atlantic, except by our 
 Italian fellow-citizens. 
 
 The two great game fishes of Nova Scotia are the Atlantic 
 salmon (salmo salar\ and the speckled or brook trout (salvelinus fon- 
 tinalis). Large toque (sa/ve/inus ramaycush], or lake trout, are found 
 in several lakes, as in Nine-Mile Lake, Lunenburg County. A 
 land-locked variety of the salmon, the Sebago salmon (salmo salar 
 sebago}) is found in some waters, as Grand Lake and Beaver Bank 
 Lake in Halifax County. 
 
 Nova Scotia was once famous for her salmon-streams, and such 
 rivers as the Medway, Mersey, St. Mary's, Margaree, Tusket, 
 Salmon, Petite Riviere, Tangier, Mira and others, still offer really 
 excellent sport, which is sure to increase in quality with greater 
 care in the preservation of the fish. 
 
 Many conditions combine to make Nova Scotia an ideal trout 
 fishing country, such as the extensive waterways and literally 
 innumerable lakes, the uniform coolness of the water combined 
 with the richness in insect life, and the fact that, though in former 
 times cruelly maltreated by the lumbermen, the forests to a very 
 great extent still stand, thus preserving the water-supply, which 
 experience shows us must decrease and even disappear with the 
 cutting down of the trees. At last the lumber dealers are alive to 
 the benefits of economic forestry, and the Government to the 
 evident fact that streams and lakes must be yearly restocked with 
 fingerlings of both salmon and trout.
 
 256 APPENDIX B 
 
 Food conditions in this Province do not favour the growth of 
 gigantic trout, one of three pounds being a rarity, but nature has 
 made up by giving a never-ending supply of good fish, ranging 
 from i to 4 Ib. up to 3 Ibs., the average in the best waters being 
 between 3 to 4 and i Ib. in weight, which any experienced fisher- 
 man will acknowledge to be very large. This may not sound so 
 grand as some of the promises of certain interested parties, but it is 
 literally true, and the statement can be added that Nova Scotia yields 
 to no country in the world in the number of trout that can be taken 
 by hook and line at any part of the open season. 
 
 SEASON. The trout-fishing season opens by law on April i, 
 and ends on August 31. Fishing through the ice for trout is 
 prohibited, a fact which prevents much fishing before middle of 
 April, as the ice does not commonly go out of the lakes before 
 that date, though exceptions occur. Fishing is at the height of 
 excellence about May i or soon after, and continues fine until 
 July, when it falls off somewhat, on account of the trout seeking 
 the cooler waters of the lakes and pools. Nevertheless there is 
 no time, even in the hot weather when a "string of fish" cannot 
 be caught with a fair amount of trouble and skill. Towards the 
 last of August the fishing looks up again and remains fine until 
 the season ends. This period has the advantage of total immunity 
 from insect pests. 
 
 As to fishing grounds it would be difficult to find a country 
 hotel in the Province near which some good trout-brook or lake 
 cannot be found ; in fact it is always possible to live at a regular 
 country boarding-place and still get all the fishing wanted without 
 spending a night in the woods. But it nevertheless remains true 
 that the farther from the regular haunts of men you go, the better 
 will the fishing be, and most anglers, far from deeming it a disad- 
 vantage to live in the open, consider it a priceless privilege to 
 combine the joys of their particular craft with the delights of 
 canoeing and camping out. 
 
 FAIRY LAKE (Kedgeemakooge in the Micmac Indian tongue) 
 is one of the largest (about 10 miles by 5 miles) and most beautiful
 
 APPENDIX B 257 
 
 bodies of water in the Province, lying in Annapolis and Queen's 
 Counties, and surrounded by the best moose-country, especially on 
 the west and south. The Maitland, West, Little, and other 
 streams flow into it, all affording the best canoeing and leading up 
 to wonderful trout-waters. In the lake itself the fishing is of 
 the very best, such places as the mouths of the streams mentioned, 
 Jeremy's Bay, &c., being famous. The best pools of all are found 
 near the exit of the Liverpool River, in the celebrated George's 
 Runs (East and West Runs) and Eelweir, while the river itself 
 is a series of celebrated pools from Fairy Lake down to the great 
 Lake Rossignol. 
 
 In the early days the land about Kedgcemakooge was granted by 
 the Government to the Micmac Indians as a reservation, but they 
 have passed away or scattered, and their former camping grounds 
 have been deserted for many decades. Lying so long idle, the 
 Department of Indian Affairs recently decided to lease the lands 
 and apply the yearly rental to the Indian fund of the Treasury. 
 
 The lease luckily fell into the hands of a sportsman and a lover 
 of nature who proposes to still preserve, in its natural beauty, this 
 great recreation ground, and open it to a limited number of seekers 
 after health, rest, or sport. Under his conservative supervision the 
 Kedgeemakooge Rod and Gun Club of Nova Scotia, Ltd., has been 
 organised, and incorporated by letters patent. Accepted members 
 are granted all the privileges conveyed by the original lease, as well 
 as the same rights on other lands in the vicinity owned by the 
 lessee. 
 
 Initiation fee has been fixed at $100.00, with annual dues such 
 as seem necessary to sustain the requirements of the club, probably 
 not exceeding $5.00. 
 
 Building sites, all having water frontage, are free to members, 
 who may select their own lot, put up a tent or a substantial cabin, 
 and own a permanent summer home for their families or friends 
 a retreat in primitive wilds where real life and perfect freedom, 
 unshackled by social forms, make for health and supreme happi- 
 ness. Fishing licenses are provided free for members. 
 
 R
 
 258 APPENDIX B 
 
 Reliable licensed guides are retained by this club, and kept in 
 readiness with motor boats and canoes. 
 
 Telephone, daily mail and livery afford constant communication 
 with the outside world for those whose inclination or business interest 
 will not permit entire isolation. On the whole I cannot imagine 
 anything more deserving of the epithet sport de luxe. 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNK, HANSON & Co. 
 Edinburgh 6* London

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
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 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
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