“It was then summer, and the weather very fine; so pleased
was I with the country, in which I had never travelled
before, that my delight proved equal to my wonder.”
-- BENVENUTO CELLINI.
There are few pleasures in life equal to that of riding on the box-seat
of a stagecoach, through a country unknown to you and hearing the driver
talk about his horses. We made the intimate acquaintance of twelve
horses on that day's ride, and learned the peculiar disposition
and traits of each one of them, their ambition of display, their
sensitiveness to praise or blame, their faithfulness, their playfulness,
the readiness with which they yielded to kind treatment, their
daintiness about food and lodging.
May I never forget the spirited little jade, the off-leader in the third
stage, the petted belle of the route, the nervous, coquettish, mincing
mare of Marshy Hope. A spoiled beauty she was; you could see that as
she took the road with dancing step, tossing her pretty head about, and
conscious of her shining black coat and her tail done up “in any simple
knot,”--like the back hair of Shelley's Beatrice Cenci. How she ambled
and sidled and plumed herself, and now and then let fly her little heels
high in air in mere excess of larkish feeling.
“So! girl; so! Kitty,” murmurs the driver in the softest tones of
admiration; “she don't mean anything by it, she's just like a kitten.”
But the heels keep flying above the traces, and by and by the driver
is obliged to “speak hash” to the beauty. The reproof of the displeased
tone is evidently felt, for she settles at once to her work, showing
perhaps a little impatience, jerking her head up and down, and
protesting by her nimble movements against the more deliberate trot
of her companion. I believe that a blow from the cruel lash would have
broken her heart; or else it would have made a little fiend of the
spirited creature. The lash is hardly ever good for the sex.
For thirteen years, winter and summer, this coachman had driven this
monotonous, uninteresting route, with always the same sandy hills,
scrubby firs, occasional cabins, in sight. What a time to nurse his
thought and feed on his heart! How deliberately he can turn things over
in his brain! What a system of philosophy he might evolve out of his
consciousness! One would think so. But, in fact, the stagebox is no
place for thinking. To handle twelve horses every day, to keep each to
its proper work, stimulating the lazy and restraining the free, humoring
each disposition, so that the greatest amount of work shall be obtained
with the least friction, making each trip on time, and so as to leave
each horse in as good condition at the close as at the start, taking
advantage of the road, refreshing the team by an occasional spurt of
speed,--all these things require constant attention; and if the driver
was composing an epic, the coach might go into the ditch, or, if no
accident happened, the horses would be worn out in a month, except for
the driver's care.
I conclude that the most delicate and important occupation in life is
stage-driving. It would be easier to “run” the Treasury Department
of the United States than a four-in-hand. I have a sense of the
unimportance of everything else in comparison with this business in
hand. And I think the driver shares that feeling. He is the autocrat of
the situation. He is lord of all the humble passengers, and they feel
their inferiority. They may have knowledge and skill in some things, but
they are of no use here. At all the stables the driver is king; all the
people on the route are deferential to him; they are happy if he will
crack a joke with them, and take it as a favor if he gives them better
than they send. And it is his joke that always raises the laugh,
regardless of its quality.
We carry the royal mail, and as we go along drop little sealed canvas
bags at way offices. The bags would not hold more than three pints of
meal, and I can see that there is nothing in them. Yet somebody along
here must be expecting a letter, or they would not keep up the mail
facilities. At French River we change horses. There is a mill here, and
there are half a dozen houses, and a cranky bridge, which the driver
thinks will not tumble down this trip. The settlement may have seen
better days, and will probably see worse.
I preferred to cross the long, shaky wooden bridge on foot, leaving the
inside passengers to take the risk, and get the worth of their money;
and while the horses were being put to, I walked on over the hill. And
here I encountered a veritable foot-pad, with a club in his hand and a
bundle on his shoulder, coming down the dusty road, with the wild-eyed
aspect of one who travels into a far country in search of adventure. He
seemed to be of a cheerful and sociable turn, and desired that I should
linger and converse with him. But he was more meagerly supplied with the
media of conversation than any person I ever met. His opening address
was in a tongue that failed to convey to me the least idea. I replied
in such language as I had with me, but it seemed to be equally lost upon
him. We then fell back upon gestures and ejaculations, and by these I
learned that he was a native of Cape Breton, but not an aborigine. By
signs he asked me where I came from, and where I was going; and he was
so much pleased with my destination, that he desired to know my name;
and this I told him with all the injunction of secrecy I could convey;
but he could no more pronounce it than I could speak his name. It
occurred to me that perhaps he spoke a French patois, and I asked him;
but he only shook his head. He would own neither to German nor Irish.
The happy thought came to me of inquiring if he knew English. But he
shook his head again, and said,
“No English, plenty garlic.”
This was entirely incomprehensible, for I knew that garlic is not a
language, but a smell. But when he had repeated the word several
times, I found that he meant Gaelic; and when we had come to this
understanding, we cordially shook hands and willingly parted. One seldom
encounters a wilder or more good-natured savage than this stalwart
wanderer. And meeting him raised my hopes of Cape Breton.
We change horses again, for the last stage, at Marshy Hope. As we turn
down the hill into this place of the mournful name, we dash past a
procession of five country wagons, which makes way for us: everything
makes way for us; even death itself turns out for the stage with four
horses. The second wagon carries a long box, which reveals to us the
mournful errand of the caravan. We drive into the stable, and get down
while the fresh horses are put to. The company's stables are all alike,
and open at each end with great doors. The stable is the best house in
the place; there are three or four houses besides, and one of them is
white, and has vines growing over the front door, and hollyhocks by the
front gate. Three or four women, and as many barelegged girls, have come
out to look at the procession, and we lounge towards the group.
“It had a winder in the top of it, and silver handles,” says one.
“Well, I declare; and you could 'a looked right in?”
“If I'd been a mind to.”
“Who has died?” I ask.
“It's old woman Larue; she lived on Gilead Hill, mostly alone. It's
better for her.”
“Had she any friends?”
“One darter. They're takin' her over Eden way, to bury her where she
come from.”
“Was she a good woman?” The traveler is naturally curious to know what
sort of people die in Nova Scotia.
“Well, good enough. Both her husbands is dead.”
The gossips continued talking of the burying. Poor old woman Larue! It
was mournful enough to encounter you for the only time in this world in
this plight, and to have this glimpse of your wretched life on lonesome
Gilead Hill. What pleasure, I wonder, had she in her life, and what
pleasure have any of these hard-favored women in this doleful region? It
is pitiful to think of it. Doubtless, however, the region isn't doleful,
and the sentimental traveler would not have felt it so if he had not
encountered this funereal flitting.
But the horses are in. We mount to our places; the big doors swing open.
“Stand away,” cries the driver.
The hostler lets go Kitty's bridle, the horses plunge forward, and we
are off at a gallop, taking the opposite direction from that pursued by
old woman Larue.
This last stage is eleven miles, through a pleasanter country, and we
make it in a trifle over an hour, going at an exhilarating gait, that
raises our spirits out of the Marshy Hope level. The perfection of
travel is ten miles an hour, on top of a stagecoach; it is greater speed
than forty by rail. It nurses one's pride to sit aloft, and rattle past
the farmhouses, and give our dust to the cringing foot tramps. There is
something royal in the swaying of the coach body, and an excitement in
the patter of the horses' hoofs. And what an honor it must be to guide
such a machine through a region of rustic admiration!
The sun has set when we come thundering down into the pretty Catholic
village of Antigonish,--the most home-like place we have seen on the
island. The twin stone towers of the unfinished cathedral loom up large
in the fading light, and the bishop's palace on the hill--the home of
the Bishop of Arichat--appears to be an imposing white barn with
many staring windows. At Antigonish--with the emphasis on the last
syllable--let the reader know there is a most comfortable inn, kept by a
cheery landlady, where the stranger is served by the comely handmaidens,
her daughters, and feels that he has reached a home at last. Here we
wished to stay. Here we wished to end this weary pilgrimage. Could
Baddeck be as attractive as this peaceful valley? Should we find any inn
on Cape Breton like this one?
“Never was on Cape Breton,” our driver had said; “hope I never shall be.
Heard enough about it. Taverns? You'll find 'em occupied.”
“Fleas?
“Wus.”
“But it is a lovely country?”
“I don't think it.”
Into what unknown dangers were we going? Why not stay here and be happy?
It was a soft summer night. People were loitering in the street; the
young beaux of the place going up and down with the belles, after the
leisurely manner in youth and summer; perhaps they were students from
St. Xavier College, or visiting gallants from Guysborough. They look
into the post-office and the fancy store. They stroll and take their
little provincial pleasure and make love, for all we can see, as if
Antigonish were a part of the world. How they must look down on Marshy
Hope and Addington Forks and Tracadie! What a charming place to live in
is this!
But the stage goes on at eight o'clock. It will wait for no man. There
is no other stage till eight the next night, and we have no alternative
but a night ride. We put aside all else except duty and Baddeck. This is
strictly a pleasure-trip.
The stage establishment for the rest of the journey could hardly be
called the finest on the continent. The wagon was drawn by two horses.
It was a square box, covered with painted cloth. Within were two narrow
seats, facing each other, affording no room for the legs of passengers,
and offering them no position but a strictly upright one. It was a most
ingeniously uncomfortable box in which to put sleepy travelers for the
night. The weather would be chilly before morning, and to sit upright
on a narrow board all night, and shiver, is not cheerful. Of course, the
reader says that this is no hardship to talk about. But the reader is
mistaken. Anything is a hardship when it is unpleasantly what one does
not desire or expect. These travelers had spent wakeful nights, in the
forests, in a cold rain, and never thought of complaining. It is
useless to talk about the Polar sufferings of Dr. Kane to a guest at a
metropolitan hotel, in the midst of luxury, when the mosquito sings all
night in his ear, and his mutton-chop is overdone at breakfast. One
does not like to be set up for a hero in trifles, in odd moments, and in
inconspicuous places.
There were two passengers besides ourselves, inhabitants of Cape Breton
Island, who were returning from Halifax to Plaster Cove, where they were
engaged in the occupation of distributing alcoholic liquors at retail.
This fact we ascertained incidentally, as we learned the nationality
of our comrades by their brogue, and their religion by their lively
ejaculations during the night. We stowed ourselves into the rigid box,
bade a sorrowing good-night to the landlady and her daughters, who stood
at the inn door, and went jingling down the street towards the open
country.
The moon rises at eight o'clock in Nova Scotia. It came above the
horizon exactly as we began our journey, a harvest-moon, round and red.
When I first saw it, it lay on the edge of the horizon as if too
heavy to lift itself, as big as a cart-wheel, and its disk cut by a
fence-rail. With what a flood of splendor it deluged farmhouses and
farms, and the broad sweep of level country! There could not be a more
magnificent night in which to ride towards that geographical mystery of
our boyhood, the Gut of Canso.
A few miles out of town the stage stopped in the road before a
post-station. An old woman opened the door of the farmhouse to receive
the bag which the driver carried to her. A couple of sprightly little
girls rushed out to “interview” the passengers, climbing up to ask their
names and, with much giggling, to get a peep at their faces. And upon
the handsomeness or ugliness of the faces they saw in the moonlight they
pronounced with perfect candor. We are not obliged to say what their
verdict was. Girls here, no doubt, as elsewhere, lose this trustful
candor as they grow older.
Just as we were starting, the old woman screamed out from the door, in
a shrill voice, addressing the driver, “Did you see ary a sick man 'bout
'Tigonish?”
“Nary.”
“There's one been round here for three or four days, pretty bad off; 's
got the St. Vitus's. He wanted me to get him some medicine for it up to
Antigonish. I've got it here in a vial, and I wished you could take it
to him.”
“Where is he?”
“I dunno. I heern he'd gone east by the Gut. Perhaps you'll hear of
him.” All this screamed out into the night.
“Well, I'll take it.”
We took the vial aboard and went on; but the incident powerfully
affected us. The weird voice of the old woman was exciting in itself,
and we could not escape the image of this unknown man, dancing about
this region without any medicine, fleeing perchance by night and alone,
and finally flitting away down the Gut of Canso. This fugitive mystery
almost immediately shaped itself into the following simple poem:
“There was an old man of Canso,
Unable to sit or stan' so.
When I asked him why he ran so,
Says he, 'I've St. Vitus' dance so,
All down the Gut of Canso.'”
This melancholy song is now, I doubt not, sung by the maidens of
Antigonish.
In spite of the consolations of poetry, however, the night wore on
slowly, and soothing sleep tried in vain to get a lodgment in the
jolting wagon. One can sleep upright, but not when his head is every
moment knocked against the framework of a wagon-cover. Even a jolly
young Irishman of Plaster Cove, whose nature it is to sleep under
whatever discouragement, is beaten by these circumstances. He wishes he
had his fiddle along. We never know what men are on casual acquaintance.
This rather stupid-looking fellow is a devotee of music, and knows how
to coax the sweetness out of the unwilling violin. Sometimes he goes
miles and miles on winter nights to draw the seductive bow for the Cape
Breton dancers, and there is enthusiasm in his voice, as he relates
exploits of fiddling from sunset till the dawn of day. Other
information, however, the young man has not; and when this is exhausted,
he becomes sleepy again, and tries a dozen ways to twist himself into
a posture in which sleep will be possible. He doubles up his legs, he
slides them under the seat, he sits on the wagon bottom; but the
wagon swings and jolts and knocks him about. His patience under
this punishment is admirable, and there is something pathetic in his
restraint from profanity.
It is enough to look out upon the magnificent night; the moon is now
high, and swinging clear and distant; the air has grown chilly; the
stars cannot be eclipsed by the greater light, but glow with a chastened
fervor. It is on the whole a splendid display for the sake of four
sleepy men, banging along in a coach,--an insignificant little vehicle
with two horses. No one is up at any of the farmhouses to see it; no one
appears to take any interest in it, except an occasional baying dog, or
a rooster that has mistaken the time of night. By midnight we come to
Tracadie, an orchard, a farmhouse, and a stable. We are not far from the
sea now, and can see a silver mist in the north. An inlet comes lapping
up by the old house with a salty smell and a suggestion of oyster-beds.
We knock up the sleeping hostlers, change horses, and go on again, dead
sleepy, but unable to get a wink. And all the night is blazing with
beauty. We think of the criminal who was sentenced to be kept awake till
he died.
The fiddler makes another trial. Temperately remarking, “I am very
sleepy,” he kneels upon the floor and rests his head on the seat. This
position for a second promises repose; but almost immediately his head
begins to pound the seat, and beat a lively rat-a-plan on the board. The
head of a wooden idol couldn't stand this treatment more than a minute.
The fiddler twisted and turned, but his head went like a triphammer on
the seat. I have never seen a devotional attitude so deceptive, or one
that produced less favorable results. The young man rose from his knees,
and meekly said,
“It's dam hard.”
If the recording angel took down this observation, he doubtless made a
note of the injured tone in which it was uttered.
How slowly the night passes to one tipping and swinging along in a
slowly moving stage! But the harbinger of the day came at last. When
the fiddler rose from his knees, I saw the morning-star burst out of the
east like a great diamond, and I knew that Venus was strong enough to
pull up even the sun, from whom she is never distant more than an eighth
of the heavenly circle. The moon could not put her out of countenance.
She blazed and scintillated with a dazzling brilliance, a throbbing
splendor, that made the moon seem a pale, sentimental invention.
Steadily she mounted, in her fresh beauty, with the confidence and vigor
of new love, driving her more domestic rival out of the sky. And this
sort of thing, I suppose, goes on frequently. These splendors burn and
this panorama passes night after night down at the end of Nova Scotia,
and all for the stage-driver, dozing along on his box, from Antigonish
to the strait.
“Here you are,” cries the driver, at length, when we have become wearily
indifferent to where we are. We have reached the ferry. The dawn has not
come, but it is not far off. We step out and find a chilly morning, and
the dark waters of the Gut of Canso flowing before us lighted here and
there by a patch of white mist. The ferryman is asleep, and his door is
shut. We call him by all the names known among men. We pound upon his
house, but he makes no sign. Before he awakes and comes out, growling,
the sky in the east is lightened a shade, and the star of the dawn
sparkles less brilliantly. But the process is slow. The twilight is
long. There is a surprising deliberation about the preparation of the
sun for rising, as there is in the movements of the boatman. Both appear
to be reluctant to begin the day.
The ferryman and his shaggy comrade get ready at last, and we step into
the clumsy yawl, and the slowly moving oars begin to pull us upstream.
The strait is here less than a mile wide; the tide is running strongly,
and the water is full of swirls,--the little whirlpools of the rip-tide.
The morning-star is now high in the sky; the moon, declining in the
west, is more than ever like a silver shield; along the east is a faint
flush of pink. In the increasing light we can see the bold shores of the
strait, and the square projection of Cape Porcupine below.
On the rocks above the town of Plaster Cove, where there is a black
and white sign,--Telegraph Cable,--we set ashore our companions of
the night, and see them climb up to their station for retailing the
necessary means of intoxication in their district, with the mournful
thought that we may never behold them again.
As we drop down along the shore, there is a white sea-gull asleep on
the rock, rolled up in a ball, with his head under his wing. The rock
is dripping with dew, and the bird is as wet as his hard bed. We pass
within an oar's length of him, but he does not heed us, and we do not
disturb his morning slumbers. For there is no such cruelty as the waking
of anybody out of a morning nap.
When we land, and take up our bags to ascend the hill to the white
tavern of Port Hastings (as Plaster Cove now likes to be called), the
sun lifts himself slowly over the treetops, and the magic of the night
vanishes.
And this is Cape Breton, reached after almost a week of travel. Here is
the Gut of Canso, but where is Baddeck? It is Saturday morning; if we
cannot make Baddeck by night, we might as well have remained in
Boston. And who knows what we shall find if we get there? A forlorn
fishing-station, a dreary hotel? Suppose we cannot get on, and are
forced to stay here? Asking ourselves these questions, we enter the
Plaster Cove tavern. No one is stirring, but the house is open, and we
take possession of the dirty public room, and almost immediately drop to
sleep in the fluffy rocking-chairs; but even sleep is not strong enough
to conquer our desire to push on, and we soon rouse up and go in pursuit
of information.
No landlord is to be found, but there is an unkempt servant in the
kitchen, who probably does not see any use in making her toilet more
than once a week. To this fearful creature is intrusted the dainty
duty of preparing breakfast. Her indifference is equal to her lack of
information, and her ability to convey information is fettered by her
use of Gaelic as her native speech. But she directs us to the stable.
There we find a driver hitching his horses to a two-horse stage-wagon.
“Is this stage for Baddeck?”
“Not much.”
“Is there any stage for Baddeck?”
“Not to-day.”
“Where does this go, and when?”
“St. Peter's. Starts in fifteen minutes.”
This seems like “business,” and we are inclined to try it, especially as
we have no notion where St. Peter's is.
“Does any other stage go from here to-day anywhere else?”
“Yes. Port Hood. Quarter of an hour.”
Everything was about to happen in fifteen minutes. We inquire further.
St. Peter's is on the east coast, on the road to Sydney. Port Hood is
on the west coast. There is a stage from Port Hood to Baddeck. It would
land us there some time Sunday morning; distance, eighty miles.
Heavens! what a pleasure-trip. To ride eighty miles more without sleep!
We should simply be delivered dead on the Bras d'Or; that is all. Tell
us, gentle driver, is there no other way?
“Well, there's Jim Hughes, come over at midnight with a passenger from
Baddeck; he's in the hotel now; perhaps he'll take you.”
Our hope hung on Jim Hughes. The frowzy servant piloted us up to his
sleeping-room. “Go right in,” said she; and we went in, according to the
simple custom of the country, though it was a bedroom that one would not
enter except on business. Mr. Hughes did not like to be disturbed, but
he proved himself to be a man who could wake up suddenly, shake his
head, and transact business,--a sort of Napoleon, in fact. Mr. Hughes
stared at the intruders for a moment, as if he meditated an assault.
“Do you live in Baddeck?” we asked.
“No; Hogamah,--half-way there.”
“Will you take us to Baddeck to-day?”
Mr. Hughes thought. He had intended to sleep--till noon. He had then
intended to go over the Judique Mountain and get a boy. But he was
disposed to accommodate. Yes, for money--sum named--he would give up his
plans, and start for Baddeck in an hour. Distance, sixty miles. Here
was a man worth having; he could come to a decision before he was out of
bed. The bargain was closed.
We would have closed any bargain to escape a Sunday in the Plaster Cove
hotel. There are different sorts of hotel uncleanliness. There is
the musty old inn, where the dirt has accumulated for years, and slow
neglect has wrought a picturesque sort of dilapidation, the mouldiness
of time, which has something to recommend it. But there is nothing
attractive in new nastiness, in the vulgar union of smartness and filth.
A dirty modern house, just built, a house smelling of poor whiskey and
vile tobacco, its white paint grimy, its floors unclean, is ever so much
worse than an old inn that never pretended to be anything but a rookery.
I say nothing against the hotel at Plaster Cove. In fact, I recommend
it. There is a kind of harmony about it that I like. There is a harmony
between the breakfast and the frowzy Gaelic cook we saw “sozzling” about
in the kitchen. There is a harmony between the appearance of the house
and the appearance of the buxom young housekeeper who comes upon the
scene later, her hair saturated with the fatty matter of the bear. The
traveler will experience a pleasure in paying his bill and departing.
Although Plaster Cove seems remote on the map, we found that we were
right in the track of the world's news there. It is the transfer station
of the Atlantic Cable Company, where it exchanges messages with
the Western Union. In a long wooden building, divided into two main
apartments, twenty to thirty operators are employed. At eight o'clock
the English force was at work receiving the noon messages from London.
The American operators had not yet come on, for New York business would
not begin for an hour. Into these rooms is poured daily the news of the
world, and these young fellows toss it about as lightly as if it were
household gossip. It is a marvelous exchange, however, and we had
intended to make some reflections here upon the en rapport feeling, so
to speak, with all the world, which we experienced while there; but
our conveyance was waiting. We telegraphed our coming to Baddeck, and
departed. For twenty-five cents one can send a dispatch to any part
of the Dominion, except the region where the Western Union has still a
foothold.
Our conveyance was a one-horse wagon, with one seat. The horse was
well enough, but the seat was narrow for three people, and the entire
establishment had in it not much prophecy of Baddeck for that day. But
we knew little of the power of Cape Breton driving. It became evident
that we should reach Baddeck soon enough, if we could cling to that
wagon-seat. The morning sun was hot. The way was so uninteresting that
we almost wished ourselves back in Nova Scotia. The sandy road was
bordered with discouraged evergreens, through which we had glimpses of
sand-drifted farms. If Baddeck was to be like this, we had come on
a fool's errand. There were some savage, low hills, and the Judique
Mountain showed itself as we got away from the town. In this first
stage, the heat of the sun, the monotony of the road, and the scarcity
of sleep during the past thirty-six hours were all unfavorable to our
keeping on the wagon-seat. We nodded separately, we nodded and reeled in
unison. But asleep or awake, the driver drove like a son of Jehu. Such
driving is the fashion on Cape Breton Island. Especially downhill,
we made the most of it; if the horse was on a run, that was only an
inducement to apply the lash; speed gave the promise of greater possible
speed. The wagon rattled like a bark-mill; it swirled and leaped about,
and we finally got the exciting impression that if the whole thing
went to pieces, we should somehow go on,--such was our impetus. Round
corners, over ruts and stones, and uphill and down, we went jolting and
swinging, holding fast to the seat, and putting our trust in things in
general. At the end of fifteen miles, we stopped at a Scotch farmhouse,
where the driver kept a relay, and changed horse.
The people were Highlanders, and spoke little English; we had struck
the beginning of the Gaelic settlement. From here to Hogamah we should
encounter only the Gaelic tongue; the inhabitants are all Catholics.
Very civil people, apparently, and living in a kind of niggardly thrift,
such as the cold land affords. We saw of this family the old man, who
had come from Scotland fifty years ago, his stalwart son, six feet and a
half high, maybe, and two buxom daughters, going to the hay-field,--good
solid Scotch lassies, who smiled in English, but spoke only Gaelic.
The old man could speak a little English, and was disposed to be
both communicative and inquisitive. He asked our business, names, and
residence. Of the United States he had only a dim conception, but his
mind rather rested upon the statement that we lived “near Boston.” He
complained of the degeneracy of the times. All the young men had gone
away from Cape Breton; might get rich if they would stay and work the
farms. But no one liked to work nowadays. From life, we diverted the
talk to literature. We inquired what books they had.
“Of course you all have the poems of Burns?”
“What's the name o' the mon?”
“Burns, Robert Burns.”
“Never heard tell of such a mon. Have heard of Robert Bruce. He was a
Scotchman.”
This was nothing short of refreshing, to find a Scotchman who had never
heard of Robert Burns! It was worth the whole journey to take this
honest man by the hand. How far would I not travel to talk with an
American who had never heard of George Washington!
The way was more varied during the next stage; we passed through some
pleasant valleys and picturesque neighborhoods, and at length, winding
around the base of a wooded range, and crossing its point, we came upon
a sight that took all the sleep out of us. This was the famous Bras
d'Or.
The Bras d'Or is the most beautiful salt-water lake I have ever seen,
and more beautiful than we had imagined a body of salt water could be.
If the reader will take the map, he will see that two narrow estuaries,
the Great and the Little Bras d'Or, enter the island of Cape Breton, on
the ragged northeast coast, above the town of Sydney, and flow in, at
length widening out and occupying the heart of the island. The water
seeks out all the low places, and ramifies the interior, running away
into lovely bays and lagoons, leaving slender tongues of land and
picturesque islands, and bringing into the recesses of the land, to the
remote country farms and settlements, the flavor of salt, and the fish
and mollusks of the briny sea. There is very little tide at any time, so
that the shores are clean and sightly for the most part, like those of
fresh-water lakes. It has all the pleasantness of a fresh-water lake,
with all the advantages of a salt one. In the streams which run into it
are the speckled trout, the shad, and the salmon; out of its depths are
hooked the cod and the mackerel, and in its bays fattens the oyster.
This irregular lake is about a hundred miles long, if you measure it
skillfully, and in some places ten miles broad; but so indented is it,
that I am not sure but one would need, as we were informed, to ride a
thousand miles to go round it, following all its incursions into the
land. The hills about it are never more than five or six hundred
feet high, but they are high enough for reposeful beauty, and offer
everywhere pleasing lines.
What we first saw was an inlet of the Bras d'Or, called, by the driver,
Hogamah Bay. At its entrance were long, wooded islands, beyond which
we saw the backs of graceful hills, like the capes of some poetic
sea-coast. The bay narrowed to a mile in width where we came upon it,
and ran several miles inland to a swamp, round the head of which we must
go. Opposite was the village of Hogamah. I had my suspicions from the
beginning about this name, and now asked the driver, who was liberally
educated for a driver, how he spelled “Hogamah.”
“Why-ko-ko-magh. Hogamah.”
Sometimes it is called Wykogamah. Thus the innocent traveler is misled.
Along the Whykokomagh Bay we come to a permanent encampment of the
Micmac Indians,--a dozen wigwams in the pine woods. Though lumber is
plenty, they refuse to live in houses. The wigwams, however, are
more picturesque than the square frame houses of the whites. Built up
conically of poles, with a hole in the top for the smoke to escape, and
often set up a little from the ground on a timber foundation, they are
as pleasing to the eye as a Chinese or Turkish dwelling. They may be
cold in winter, but blessed be the tenacity of barbarism, which retains
this agreeable architecture. The men live by hunting in the season,
and the women support the family by making moccasins and baskets. These
Indians are most of them good Catholics, and they try to go once a year
to mass and a sort of religious festival held at St. Peter's, where
their sins are forgiven in a yearly lump.
At Whykokomagh, a neat fishing village of white houses, we stopped for
dinner at the Inverness House. The house was very clean, and the tidy
landlady gave us as good a dinner as she could of the inevitable green
tea, toast, and salt fish. She was Gaelic, but Protestant, as the
village is, and showed us with pride her Gaelic Bible and hymn-book. A
peaceful place, this Whykokomagh; the lapsing waters of Bras d'Or made
a summer music all along the quiet street; the bay lay smiling with its
islands in front, and an amphitheater of hills rose behind. But for the
line of telegraph poles one might have fancied he could have security
and repose here.
We put a fresh pony into the shafts, a beast born with an everlasting
uneasiness in his legs, and an amount of “go” in him which suited his
reckless driver. We no longer stood upon the order of our going; we
went. As we left the village, we passed a rocky hay-field, where the
Gaelic farmer was gathering the scanty yield of grass. A comely Indian
girl was stowing the hay and treading it down on the wagon. The driver
hailed the farmer, and they exchanged Gaelic repartee which set all the
hay-makers in a roar, and caused the Indian maid to darkly and sweetly
beam upon us. We asked the driver what he had said. He had only inquired
what the man would take for the load--as it stood! A joke is a joke down
this way.
I am not about to describe this drive at length, in order that the
reader may skip it; for I know the reader, being of like passion and
fashion with him. From the time we first struck the Bras d'Or for thirty
miles we rode in constant sight of its magnificent water. Now we were
two hundred feet above the water, on the hillside, skirting a point or
following an indentation; and now we were diving into a narrow valley,
crossing a stream, or turning a sharp corner, but always with the Bras
d'Or in view, the afternoon sun shining on it, softening the outlines of
its embracing hills, casting a shadow from its wooded islands. Sometimes
we opened on a broad water plain bounded by the Watchabaktchkt hills,
and again we looked over hill after hill receding into the soft and hazy
blue of the land beyond the great mass of the Bras d'Or. The reader can
compare the view and the ride to the Bay of Naples and the Cornice Road;
we did nothing of the sort; we held on to the seat, prayed that the
harness of the pony might not break, and gave constant expression to
our wonder and delight. For a week we had schooled ourselves to expect
nothing more from this wicked world, but here was an enchanting vision.
The only phenomenon worthy the attention of any inquiring mind, in this
whole record, I will now describe. As we drove along the side of a
hill, and at least two hundred feet above the water, the road suddenly
diverged and took a circuit higher up. The driver said that was to avoid
a sink-hole in the old road,--a great curiosity, which it was worth
while to examine. Beside the old road was a circular hole, which nipped
out a part of the road-bed, some twenty-five feet in diameter, filled
with water almost to the brim, but not running over. The water was dark
in color, and I fancied had a brackish taste. The driver said that a few
weeks before, when he came this way, it was solid ground where this well
now opened, and that a large beech-tree stood there. When he returned
next day, he found this hole full of water, as we saw it, and the large
tree had sunk in it. The size of the hole seemed to be determined by the
reach of the roots of the tree. The tree had so entirely disappeared,
that he could not with a long pole touch its top. Since then the water
had neither subsided nor overflowed. The ground about was compact
gravel. We tried sounding the hole with poles, but could make nothing of
it. The water seemed to have no outlet nor inlet; at least, it did not
rise or fall. Why should the solid hill give way at this place, and
swallow up a tree? and if the water had any connection with the lake,
two hundred feet below and at some distance away, why didn't the water
run out? Why should the unscientific traveler have a thing of this kind
thrown in his way? The driver did not know.
This phenomenon made us a little suspicious of the foundations of this
island which is already invaded by the jealous ocean, and is anchored to
the continent only by the cable.
The drive became more charming as the sun went down, and we saw the
hills grow purple beyond the Bras d'Or. The road wound around lovely
coves and across low promontories, giving us new beauties at every turn.
Before dark we had crossed the Middle River and the Big Baddeck, on long
wooden bridges, which straggled over sluggish waters and long reaches
of marsh, upon which Mary might have been sent to call the cattle home.
These bridges were shaky and wanted a plank at intervals, but they
are in keeping with the enterprise of the country. As dusk came on,
we crossed the last hill, and were bowling along by the still gleaming
water. Lights began to appear in infrequent farmhouses, and under cover
of the gathering night the houses seemed to be stately mansions; and we
fancied we were on a noble highway, lined with elegant suburban seaside
residences, and about to drive into a town of wealth and a port of great
commerce. We were, nevertheless, anxious about Baddeck. What sort of
haven were we to reach after our heroic (with the reader's permission)
week of travel? Would the hotel be like that at Plaster Cove? Were our
thirty-six hours of sleepless staging to terminate in a night of misery
and a Sunday of discomfort?
We came into a straggling village; that we could see by the starlight.
But we stopped at the door of a very unhotel-like appearing hotel. It
had in front a flower-garden; it was blazing with welcome lights; it
opened hospitable doors, and we were received by a family who expected
us. The house was a large one, for two guests; and we enjoyed the luxury
of spacious rooms, an abundant supper, and a friendly welcome; and, in
short, found ourselves at home. The proprietor of the Telegraph House
is the superintendent of the land lines of Cape Breton, a Scotchman,
of course; but his wife is a Newfoundland lady. We cannot violate the
sanctity of what seemed like private hospitality by speaking freely of
this lady and the lovely girls, her daughters, whose education has been
so admirably advanced in the excellent school at Baddeck; but we can
confidently advise any American who is going to Newfoundland, to get a
wife there, if he wants one at all. It is the only new article he can
bring from the Provinces that he will not have to pay duty on. And
here is a suggestion to our tariff-mongers for the “protection” of New
England women.
The reader probably cannot appreciate the delicious sense of rest and
of achievement which we enjoyed in this tidy inn, nor share the
anticipations of undisturbed, luxurious sleep, in which we indulged as
we sat upon the upper balcony after supper, and saw the moon rise over
the glistening Bras d'Or and flood with light the islands and headlands
of the beautiful bay. Anchored at some distance from the shore was
a slender coasting vessel. The big red moon happened to come up just
behind it, and the masts and spars and ropes of the vessel came out,
distinctly traced on the golden background, making such a night picture
as I once saw painted of a ship in a fiord of Norway. The scene was
enchanting. And we respected then the heretofore seemingly insane
impulse that had driven us on to Baddeck.