On the road to Windsor--The great Nova Scotia Railway--A Fellow
Passenger--Cape Sable Shipwrecks--Seals--Ponies--Windsor--Sam Slick--A
lively Example.
A dewy, spring-like morning is all I remembered of my farewell to Halifax.
A very sweet and odorous air as I rode towards the railway station in the
funereal cab; a morning without fog, a sparkling freshness that twinkled
in the leaves and crisped the waters.
So I take leave of thee, quaint old city of Chebucto. The words of a
familiar ditty, the memory of the unfortunate Miss Bailey, rises upon me
as the morning bugle sounds--
"A captain bold in Halifax, who lived in country quarters,
Seduced a maid, who hung herself next morning in her garters;
His wicked conscience smoted him, he lost his spirits daily,
He took to drinking ratifia, and thought upon Miss Bailey."
While the psychological features of the case were puzzling his brain and
keeping him wide awake--
"The candles blue, at XII. o'clock, began to burn quite paley,
A ghost appeared at his bedside, and said--
behold, Miss Bailey!!!"
Even such a sprite, so dead in look, so woe-begone, drew Priam's curtain
in the dead of night to tell him half his Troy was burned; but this visit
was for a different purpose, as we find by the words which the gallant
Lothario addressed to his victim:
"'You'll find,' says he, 'a five-pound note in my regimental
small-clothes;
'T will bribe the sexton for your grave,' the ghost then vanished
gaily,
Saying, 'God bless you, wicked Captain Smith, although you've
ruined Miss Bailey.'"
There is no end to these legends; the whole province is full of them. The
Province Building is stuffed with rich historical manuscripts, that only
wait for the antiquarian explorer.[G]
[G] Since my visit this work has actually commenced. At the close of the
legislative session of 1857, the Hon. Joseph Howe moved, and the Hon.
Attorney-General seconded, and the House, after some demur, resolved,
that his Excellency be requested to appoint a commission for examining
and arranging the records of the Province. Dining the recess the office
was instituted, and Thomas B. Akins, Esq., a gentleman distinguished for
antiquarian taste and research, was appointed commissioner. It was known
that in the garrets or cellars of the Province Building were heaps of
manuscript records, of various kinds; but their exact nature and value
were only surmised. Some of these had vanished, it is said, by the
agency of rats and mice; and moth and mold were doing their work on
other portions. To stay the waste, to ascertain what the heaps
contained, and to arrange documents at all worthy of preservation, the
commission was appointed. Mr. Akins has been for some months at the
superintendence of the work, helped by a very industrious assistant, Mr.
James Farquhar. Very pleasing results indeed have been realized. Several
boxes of documents, arranged and labelled, have been packed, and fifteen
or twenty volumes of interesting manuscripts have been prepared. Some of
these are of great interest, relative to the history of the Province,
and of British America generally, being original papers concerning the
conquest and settling of the Provinces, and having reference to the
Acadian French, the Indians, the taking of Louisburgh, of Quebec, and
other matters of historic importance connected with the suppression of
French dominion in America. We understand some of these documents prove,
as many previously believed, that what appeared to be a stern necessity,
and not wanton oppression or tyranny, caused the painful dispersion of
the former French inhabitants of the more poetic and pastoral parts of
Acadia. If this be so, some excellent sentiment and eloquent romance
will have to be taken with considerable modification. A few of the most
indignant bursts (?) in Longfellow's fine poem of "Evangeline" may be in
this predicament; and may have to be read, not exactly as so much
gospel, but rather as rhetorical extremes, unsubstantial, but too
elegant to be altogether discarded. In volumes alluded to, of the record
commission, the dispatches, and letters, and other documents of a former
age, and in the handwriting, or from the immediate dictation, of eminent
personages, will present very attractive material for those who find
deep interest in such venerable inquiries; who obtain from this kind of
lore a charming renewal of the past, a clearing up of local history, and
an almost face-to-face conference with persons whose names are landmarks
of national annals. The commission not only examines and arranges, but
forms copious characteristic "contents" of the volumes, and an index for
easy reference; it also keeps a journal of each day's proceedings. The
"contents" tell the nature and topics of each document, and will thus
facilitate research, and prevent much injurious turning over of the
manuscripts. The work, too long delayed, has been happily commenced. Its
neglect was felt to be a fault and a reproach, and serious loss was
known to impend; but still it was put off, and spoken lightly of, and
sneered at, and a very mistaken economy pretended, until last
legislative session, when it was adopted by accident apparently, and is
now in successful operation. The next questions are, how will the
arranged documents be preserved? who will have them in charge? will they
be allowed to be scattered about in the hands of privileged persons, to
be lost wholesale? or will they, as they should, be sacredly conserved,
a store to which all shall have a common but well-guarded light of
access and research.--_Halifax Sun_, _Dec. 9, 1857_.
But now we approach the station of the great Nova Scotia Railway, nine and
three-quarter miles in length, that skirts the margin of Bedford Basin,
and ends at the head of that blue sheet of water in the village of
Sackville. It is amusing to see the gravity and importance of the
conductor, in uniform frock-coat and with crown and V. R. buttons, as he
paces up and down the platform before starting; and the quiet dignity of
the sixpenny ticket-office; and the busy air of the freight-master,
checking off boxes and bundles for the distant terminus--so distant that
it can barely be distinguished by the naked eye. But it was a pleasant
ride, that by the Basin! Not less pleasant because of the company of an
old friend, who, with wife and children, went with me to the end of the
iron road. Arrived there, we parted, with many a hearty hand-shake, and
thence by stage to Windsor, on the river Avon, forty-five miles or so west
of Halifax.
My fellow-passenger on the stage-top was a pony! Yes, a real pony! not
bigger, however, than a good sized pointer dog, although his head was of
most preposterous horse-like length. This equine Tom Thumb, was one of the
mustangs, or wild horses of Sable Island, some little account of which
here may not be uninteresting. But first let me say, in order not to tax
the credulity of my reader too much, that pony did not stand upright upon
the roof of the coach, as may have been surmised, but was very cleverly
laid upon his side, with his four legs strapped in the form of a saw-buck,
precisely as butchers tie the legs of calves or of sheep together, for
transportation in carts to the shambles, only pony's fetters were not so
cruel--indeed he seemed to be quite at his ease--like the member of the
foreign legion on the road to Dartmouth.
Now then, pony's birth-place is one of the most interesting upon our
coast. Do you remember it, my transatlantic traveller? The little yellow
spot that greets you so far out at sea, and bids you welcome to the
western hemisphere? I hope you have seen it in fine weather; many a goodly
ship has left her bones upon that yellow island in less auspicious
seasons. The first of these misadventurers was Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who
was lost in a storm close by; the memorable words with which he hailed his
consort are now familiar to every reader: "Heaven," said he, "is as near
by sea as by land," and so bade the world farewell in the tempest. Legends
of wrecks of buccaneers, of spectres, multiply as we penetrate into the
mysterious history of the yellow island. And its present aspect is
sufficiently tempting to the adventurous, for whom--
"If danger other charms have none,
Then danger's self is lure alone."
The following description, from a lecture delivered in Halifax, by Dr. J.
Bernard Gilpin, will commend itself to our modern Robinson Crusoes:
"Should any one be visiting the island now, he might see, about ten miles'
distance, looking seaward, half a dozen low, dark hummocks on the horizon.
As he approaches, they gradually resolve themselves into hills fringed by
breakers, and by and by the white sea beach with its continued surf--the
sand-hills, part naked, part waving in grass of the deepest green, unfold
themselves--a house and a barn dot the western extremity--here and there
along the wild beach lie the ribs of unlucky traders half-buried in the
shifting sand. By this time a red ensign is waving at its peak, and from a
tall flag-staff and crow's nest erected upon the highest hill midway of
the island, an answering flag is waving to the wind. Before the anchor is
let go, and the cutter is rounding to in five fathoms of water, men and
horses begin to dot the beach, a life-boat is drawn rapidly on a boat-cart
to the beach, manned, and fairly breasting the breakers upon the bar. It
may have been three long winter months that this boat's crew have had no
tidings of the world, or they may have three hundred emigrants and wrecked
crews, waiting to be carried off. The hurried greetings over, news told
and newspapers and letters given, the visitor prepares to return with them
to the island. Should it be evening, he will see the cutter already under
weigh and standing seaward; but, should it be fine weather, plenty of
day, and wind right off the shore, even then she lies to the wind anchor
apeak, and mainsail hoisted, ready to run at a moment's notice, so sudden
are the shifts of wind, and so hard to claw off from those treacherous
shores. But the life-boat is now entering the perpetual fringe of surf--a
few seals tumble and play in the broken waters, and the stranger draws his
breath hard, as the crew bend to their oars, the helmsman standing high in
the pointed stern, with loud command and powerful arm keeping her true,
the great boat goes riding on the back of a huge wave, and is carried high
up on the beach in a mass of struggling water. To spring from their seats
into the water, and hold hard the boat, now on the point of being swept
back by the receding wave, is the work of an instant. Another moment they
are left high and dry on the beach, another, and the returning wave and a
vigorous run of the crew has borne her out of all harm's way.
"Such is the ceremony of landing at Sable Island nine or ten months out of
the year: though there are at times some sweet halcyon days when a lad
might land in a flat. Dry-shod the visitor picks his way between the
thoroughly drenched crew, picks up a huge scallop or two, admires the
tumbling play of the round-headed seals, and plods his way through the
deep sand of an opening between the hills, or gulch (so called) to the
head-quarters establishment. And here, for the last fifty years, a kind
welcome has awaited all, be they voluntary idlers or sea-wrecked men.
Screened by the sand-hills, here is a well-stocked barn and barnyard,
filled with its ordinary inhabitants, sleek milch cows and heady bulls,
lazy swine, a horse grazing at a tether, with geese and ducks and fowls
around. Two or three large stores and boat-houses, quarters for the men,
the Superintendent's house, blacksmith shop, sailors' home for sea-wrecked
men, and oil-house, stand around an irregular square, and surmounted by
the tall flag-staff and crow's nest on the neighboring hill. So abrupt the
contrast, so snug the scene, if the roar of the ocean were out of his
ears, one might fancy himself twenty miles inland.
"Nearly the first thing the visitor does is to mount the flag-staff, and
climbing into the crow's nest, scan the scene. The ocean bounds him
everywhere. Spread east and west, he views the narrow island in form of a
bow, as if the great Atlantic waves had bent it around, nowhere much above
a mile wide, twenty-six miles long, including the dry bars, and holding a
shallow late thirteen miles long in its centre.
"There it all lies spread like a map at his feet--grassy hill and sandy
valley fading away into the distance. On the foreground the outpost men
galloping their rough ponies into head-quarters, recalled by the flag
flying above his head; the West-end house of refuge, with bread and
matches, firewood and kettle, and directions to find water, and
head-quarters with flag-staff on the adjoining hill. Every sandy peak or
grassy knoll with a dead man's name or old ship's tradition--Baker's Hill,
Trott's Cove, Scotchman's Head, French Gardens--traditionary spot where
the poor convicts expiated their social crimes--the little burial-ground
nestling in the long grass of a high hill, and consecrated to the repose
of many a sea-tossed limb; and two or three miles down the shallow lake,
the South-side house and barn, and staff and boats lying on the lake
beside the door. Nine miles further down, by the help of a glass, he may
view the flag-staff at the foot of the lake, and five miles further the
East-end look-out, with its staff and watch-house. Herds of wild ponies
dot the hills, and black duck and sheldrakes are heading their young
broods on the mirror-like ponds. Seals innumerable are basking on the
warm sands, or piled like ledges of rock along the shores. The Glascow's
bow, the Maskonemet's stern, the East Boston's hulk, and the grinning ribs
of the well-fastened Guide are spotting the sands, each with its tale of
last adventure, hardships passed, and toil endured. The whole picture is
set in a silver-frosted frame of rolling surf and sea-ribbed sand."
The patrol duty of the hardy islander is thus described:
"Mounted upon his hardy pony, the solitary patrol starts upon his lonely
way. He rides up the centre valleys, ever and anon mounting a grassy hill
to look seaward, reaches the West-end bar, speculates upon perchance a
broken spar, an empty bottle, or a cask of beef struggling in the
land-wash--now fords the shallow lake, looking well for his land-range, to
escape the hole where Baker was drowned; and coming on the breeding-ground
of the countless birds, his pony's hoof with a reckless smash goes
crunching through a dozen eggs or callow young. He fairly puts his pony to
her mettle to escape the cloud of angry birds which, arising in countless
numbers, dent his weather-beaten tarpaulin with their sharp bills, and
snap his pony's ears, and confuse him with their sharp, shrill cries. Ten
minutes more, and he is holding hard to count the seals. There they lie,
old ocean flocks, resting their wave-tossed limbs--great ocean bulls, and
cows, and calves. He marks them all. The wary old male turns his broad
moustached nostrils to the tainted gale of man and horse sweeping down
upon them, and the whole herd are simultaneously lumbering a retreat. And
now he goes, plying his little short whip, charging the whole herd to cut
off their retreat for the pleasure and fun of galloping in and over and
amongst fifty great bodies, rolling and tumbling and tossing, and
splashing the surf in their awkward endeavors to escape."
And now to return to our pony, who seems to sympathize with his
fellow-traveller, for every instant he raises his head as if he would peep
into his note-book. Let me quote this of him and of his brethren:
"When the present breed of wild ponies was introduced, there is no record.
In an old print, seemingly a hundred years old, they are depicted as being
lassoed by men in cocked hats and antique habiliments. At present, three
or four hundred are their utmost numbers, and it is curious to observe
how in their figures and habits they approach the wild races of Mexico or
the Ukraine. They are divided into herds or gangs, each having a separate
pasture, and each presided over by an old male, conspicuous by the length
of his mane, rolling in tangled masses over eye and ear down to his fore
arm. Half his time seems taken up in tossing it from his eyes as he
collects his out-lying mares and foals on the approach of strangers, and
keeping them well up in a pack boldly faces the enemy whilst they retreat
at a gallop. If pressed, however, he, too, retreats on their rear. He
brooks no undivided allegiance, and many a fierce battle is waged by the
contending chieftains for the honor of the herd. In form they resemble the
wild horses of all lands: the large head, thick, shaggy neck of the male,
low withers, paddling gait, and sloping quarters, have all their
counterparts in the mustang and the horse of the Ukraine. There seems a
remarkable tendency in these horses to assume the Isabella colors, the
light chestnuts, and even the piebalds or paint horses of the Indian
prairies or the Mexican Savannah. The annual drive or herding, usually
resulting in the whole island being swept from end to end, and a kicking,
snorting, half-terrified mass driven into a large pound, from which two
or three dozen are selected, lassoed, and exported to town, affords fine
sport, wild riding, and plenty of falls."
Thus much for Sable Island.
"Dark isle of mourning! aptly art thou named,
For thou hast been the cause of many a tear;
For deeds of treacherous strife too justly famed,
The Atlantic's charnel--desolate and drear;
A thing none love, though wand'ring thousands fear--
If for a moment rest the Muse's wing
Where through the waves thy sandy wastes appear,
'Tis that she may one strain of horror sing,
Wild as the dashing waves that tempests o'er thee fling."[H]
[H] Poem by the Hon. Joseph Howe.
And now pony we must part. Windsor approaches! Yonder among the embowering
trees is the residence of Judge Halliburton, the author of "Sam Slick."
How I admire him for his hearty hostility to republican institutions! It
is natural, straightforward, shrewd, and, no doubt, sincere. At the same
time, it affords an example of how much the colonist or satellite form of
government tends to limit the scope of the mind, which under happier skies
and in a wider intelligence might have shone to advantage.