OFF FOR THE STRAIT OF CANSO.—ST. PETER’S AND THE
COUNTRY.—DAVID MURDOCH’S HORSES, AND HIS DRIVING.—ARRIVE AT
PLASTER COVE.
MONDAY, _July 25_. We are out “by the dawn’s early light,” and assist in
getting our baggage upon the coach, as David Murdoch calls his two-horse
covered wagon, which is to carry us on to the Strait of Canso. We have
breakfasted, and all is ready. As I pen these notes, here and there by
the wayside, I keep them mainly in the present tense. David, a little
fair-complexioned, sandy-whiskered farmer, innkeeper, stage-proprietor,
and driver, all in one, is exactly the man for his vocation. Quick in
his motions, intelligent and good-tempered, he is entirely to our
purpose. He starts his Cape Bretons, a span of light, wiry animals, upon
a canter, in our opinion an indiscreet pace. We pass St. Peter’s, a
superlative place—superlatively minute, the smallest city in the world.
It had, for several years, one house, but has of late been in a more
thriving condition. It has now a name on the map, a population of some
nine or ten souls, and two houses, a large public work in the shape of a
beach, and a little shipping, not able to say how much exactly, as it is
all absent but a skiff and a bark canoe, and the wreck of a schooner, in
a poor and neglected condition. How long, at this rate of progress, it
will take for St. Peter’s to grow out of existence, is a fair question
of arithmetic, left for the statist of the island to cipher out. We
pause for a moment only, and that in front of a mercantile
establishment, if one may guess from a tin-foil-covered paper of
tobacco, and astride of it a couple of pipes in the window, but dash
through its suburbs, a pig-pen and a hen-roost, and pass the gates of a
calf-pen and a potato-patch, and gain the open country, a wild and
lonesome tract, half-wooded, and the other half weeds, brush, and stumps
of all calibre and colors, from rotten-red and brown down to coal-black,
and all torn to pieces, and tangled into one briery wilderness, just fit
for the fires that occasionally scour through.
We were mistaken about the indiscretion of David, in his driving, and
add two more to the list of those impertinent travellers who hastily
pass judgment upon persons and things of which they are quite ignorant.
David is the Jehu of the road, and his steeds are chosen, and fitted to
their master. Like locomotives, they work with the greater ease and
spirit as they wax hotter. For three hours they trotted, galloped, ran,
as if something more than horse was in them, and something worse than
man was in their driver. There was; as we knew by the flame in his face
and about his nostrils, and by his breath that had spirit in it. Around
the hills, and at their foot, over bridges, and through the bushy dales,
the road described many a Hogarth’s line of beauty, and many a
full-blooded S. In whirling through these graceful sinuosities, now
strongly on the right wheels, then heavily on the left, flirting the
dust or mud into the air, we seemed to swim or fly on the oily brim of
peril. Expostulation flashed out upon the lips in vain. A shake of the
head, and a knowing smile, sharpened off by the crack of the whip,
restored assurance, and fairly straightened all things out. But all went
well, and passengers as well as driver became rash and brave, and
foolishly came to like and applaud what at first they were disposed to
protest against.
A change of horses has enabled David to persist in this extraordinary
driving, which brings us to Plaster Cove at noon, where we part with
both the mercurial little Scotchman, and Cape Breton. Thus have we
coasted, and crossed this British Island, in which, with all that is
repulsive and desolate, nature has done much, especially in the
picturesque, and where agriculture and commerce have large fields for
improvement. To the tourist that loves nature, and who, for the manifold
beauties by hill and shore, by woods and waters, is happy to make small
sacrifices of personal comfort, I would commend Cape Breton. Your
fashionable, whose main object is company, dress, and frivolous pleasure
with the gay, and whose only tolerable stopping-place is the grand
hotel, had better content himself with reading of this Island.