IV

“He had no ill-will to the Scotch; for, if he had been

conscious of that, he never would have thrown himself into

the bosom of their country, and trusted to the protection of

its remote inhabitants with a fearless confidence.”

--BOSWELL'S JOHNSON.

Although it was an open and flagrant violation of the Sabbath day as it

is kept in Scotch Baddeck, our kind hosts let us sleep late on Sunday

morning, with no reminder that we were not sleeping the sleep of the

just. It was the charming Maud, a flitting sunbeam of a girl, who waited

to bring us our breakfast, and thereby lost the opportunity of going

to church with the rest of the family,--an act of gracious hospitality

which the tired travelers appreciated.

The travelers were unable, indeed, to awaken into any feeling of

Sabbatical straitness. The morning was delicious,--such a morning as

never visits any place except an island; a bright, sparkling morning,

with the exhilaration of the air softened by the sea. What a day it was

for idleness, for voluptuous rest, after the flight by day and night

from St. John! It was enough, now that the morning was fully opened

and advancing to the splendor of noon, to sit upon the upper balcony,

looking upon the Bras d'Or and the peaceful hills beyond, reposeful and

yet sparkling with the air and color of summer, and inhale the balmy

air. (We greatly need another word to describe good air, properly

heated, besides this overworked “balmy.”) Perhaps it might in some

regions be considered Sabbath-keeping, simply to rest in such a soothing

situation,--rest, and not incessant activity, having been one of the

original designs of the day.

But our travelers were from New England, and they were not willing to

be outdone in the matter of Sunday observances by such an out-of-the-way

and nameless place as Baddeck. They did not set themselves up as

missionaries to these benighted Gaelic people, to teach them by example

that the notion of Sunday which obtained two hundred years ago in

Scotland had been modified, and that the sacredness of it had pretty

much disappeared with the unpleasantness of it. They rather lent

themselves to the humor of the hour, and probably by their demeanor

encouraged the respect for the day on Cape Breton Island. Neither by

birth nor education were the travelers fishermen on Sunday, and they

were not moved to tempt the authorities to lock them up for dropping

here a line and there a line on the Lord's day.

In fact, before I had finished my second cup of Maud-mixed coffee, my

companion, with a little show of haste, had gone in search of the kirk,

and I followed him, with more scrupulousness, as soon as I could without

breaking the day of rest. Although it was Sunday, I could not but notice

that Baddeck was a clean-looking village of white wooden houses, of

perhaps seven or eight hundred inhabitants; that it stretched along

the bay for a mile or more, straggling off into farmhouses at each end,

lying for the most part on the sloping curve of the bay. There were a

few country-looking stores and shops, and on the shore three or four

rather decayed and shaky wharves ran into the water, and a few schooners

lay at anchor near them; and the usual decaying warehouses leaned about

the docks. A peaceful and perhaps a thriving place, but not a bustling

place. As I walked down the road, a sailboat put out from the shore

and slowly disappeared round the island in the direction of the Grand

Narrows. It had a small pleasure party on board. None of them were

drowned that day, and I learned at night that they were Roman Catholics

from Whykokornagh.

The kirk, which stands near the water, and at a distance shows a pretty

wooden spire, is after the pattern of a New England meeting-house. When

I reached it, the house was full and the service had begun. There was

something familiar in the bareness and uncompromising plainness

and ugliness of the interior. The pews had high backs, with narrow,

uncushioned seats. The pulpit was high,--a sort of theological

fortification,--approached by wide, curving flights of stairs on either

side. Those who occupied the near seats to the right and left of the

pulpit had in front of them a blank board partition, and could not

by any possibility see the minister, though they broke their necks

backwards over their high coat-collars. The congregation had a striking

resemblance to a country New England congregation of say twenty years

ago. The clothes they wore had been Sunday clothes for at least that

length of time.

Such clothes have a look of I know not what devout and painful

respectability, that is in keeping with the worldly notion of rigid

Scotch Presbyterianism. One saw with pleasure the fresh and rosy-cheeked

children of this strict generation, but the women of the audience were

not in appearance different from newly arrived and respectable Irish

immigrants. They wore a white cap with long frills over the forehead,

and a black handkerchief thrown over it and hanging down the neck,--a

quaint and not unpleasing disguise.

The house, as I said, was crowded. It is the custom in this region to

go to church,--for whole families to go, even the smallest children;

and they not unfrequently walk six or seven miles to attend the service.

There is a kind of merit in this act that makes up for the lack of

certain other Christian virtues that are practiced elsewhere. The

service was worth coming seven miles to participate in!--it was about

two hours long, and one might well feel as if he had performed a work

of long-suffering to sit through it. The singing was strictly

congregational. Congregational singing is good (for those who like it)

when the congregation can sing. This congregation could not sing, but it

could grind the Psalms of David powerfully. They sing nothing else but

the old Scotch version of the Psalms, in a patient and faithful long

meter. And this is regarded, and with considerable plausibility, as an

act of worship. It certainly has small element of pleasure in it.

Here is a stanza from Psalm xlv., which the congregation, without any

instrumental nonsense, went through in a dragging, drawling manner, and

with perfect individual independence as to time:

“Thine arrows sharply pierce the heart of th' enemies of the king, And

under thy sub-jec-shi-on the people down do bring.”

The sermon was extempore, and in English with Scotch pronunciation; and

it filled a solid hour of time. I am not a good judge of sermons, and

this one was mere chips to me; but my companion, who knows a sermon

when he hears it, said that this was strictly theological, and Scotch

theology at that, and not at all expository. It was doubtless my fault

that I got no idea whatever from it. But the adults of the congregation

appeared to be perfectly satisfied with it; at least they sat bolt

upright and nodded assent continually. The children all went to sleep

under it, without any hypocritical show of attention. To be sure, the

day was warm and the house was unventilated. If the windows had been

opened so as to admit the fresh air from the Bras d'Or, I presume

the hard-working farmers and their wives would have resented such an

interference with their ordained Sunday naps, and the preacher's sermon

would have seemed more musty than it appeared to be in that congenial

and drowsy air. Considering that only half of the congregation could

understand the preacher, its behavior was exemplary.

After the sermon, a collection was taken up for the minister; and I

noticed that nothing but pennies rattled into the boxes,--a melancholy

sound for the pastor. This might appear niggardly on the part of these

Scotch Presbyterians, but it is on principle that they put only a penny

into the box; they say that they want a free gospel, and so far as they

are concerned they have it. Although the farmers about the Bras d'Or are

well-to-do they do not give their minister enough to keep his soul in

his Gaelic body, and his poor support is eked out by the contributions

of a missionary society. It was gratifying to learn that this was

not from stinginess on the part of the people, but was due to their

religious principle. It seemed to us that everybody ought to be good in

a country where it costs next to nothing.

When the service was over, about half of the people departed; the

rest remained in their seats and prepared to enter upon their Sabbath

exercises. These latter were all Gaelic people, who had understood

little or nothing of the English service. The minister turned himself

at once into a Gaelic preacher and repeated in that language the long

exercises of the morning. The sermon and perhaps the prayers were

quite as enjoyable in Gaelic as in English, and the singing was a great

improvement. It was of the same Psalms, but the congregation chanted

them in a wild and weird tone and manner, as wailing and barbarous to

modern ears as any Highland devotional outburst of two centuries ago.

This service also lasted about two hours; and as soon as it was over

the faithful minister, without any rest or refreshment, organized the

Sunday-school, and it must have been half past three o'clock before that

was over. And this is considered a day of rest.

These Gaelic Christians, we were informed, are of a very old pattern;

and some of them cling more closely to religious observances than to

morality. Sunday is nowhere observed with more strictness. The community

seems to be a very orderly and thrifty one, except upon solemn and

stated occasions. One of these occasions is the celebration of

the Lord's Supper; and in this the ancient Highland traditions are

preserved. The rite is celebrated not oftener than once a year by

any church. It then invites the neighboring churches to partake with

it,--the celebration being usually in the summer and early fall months.

It has some of the characteristics of a “camp-meeting.” People come from

long distances, and as many as two thousand and three thousand assemble

together. They quarter themselves without special invitation upon the

members of the inviting church. Sometimes fifty people will pounce upon

one farmer, overflowing his house and his barn and swarming all about

his premises, consuming all the provisions he has laid up for his

family, and all he can raise money to buy, and literally eating him out

of house and home. Not seldom a man is almost ruined by one of these

religious raids,--at least he is left with a debt of hundreds of

dollars. The multitude assembles on Thursday and remains over Sunday.

There is preaching every day, but there is something besides. Whatever

may be the devotion of a part of the assembly, the four days are,

in general, days of license, of carousing, of drinking, and of other

excesses, which our informant said he would not particularize; we

could understand what they were by reading St. Paul's rebuke of the

Corinthians for similar offenses. The evil has become so great and

burdensome that the celebration of this sacred rite will have to be

reformed altogether.

Such a Sabbath quiet pervaded the street of Baddeck, that the fast

driving of the Gaels in their rattling, one-horse wagons, crowded

full of men, women, and children,--released from their long sanctuary

privileges, and going home,--was a sort of profanation of the day; and

we gladly turned aside to visit the rural jail of the town.

Upon the principal street or road of Baddeck stands the dreadful

prison-house. It is a story and a quarter edifice, built of stone and

substantially whitewashed; retired a little from the road, with a square

of green turf in front of it, I should have taken it for the residence

of the Dairyman's Daughter, but for the iron gratings at the lower

windows. A more inviting place to spend the summer in, a vicious person

could not have. The Scotch keeper of it is an old, garrulous, obliging

man, and keeps codfish tackle to loan. I think that if he had a prisoner

who was fond of fishing, he would take him with him on the bay in

pursuit of the mackerel and the cod. If the prisoner were to take

advantage of his freedom and attempt to escape, the jailer's feelings

would be hurt, and public opinion would hardly approve the prisoner's

conduct.

The jail door was hospitably open, and the keeper invited us to enter.

Having seen the inside of a good many prisons in our own country

(officially), we were interested in inspecting this. It was a favorable

time for doing so, for there happened to be a man confined there,

a circumstance which seemed to increase the keeper's feeling of

responsibility in his office. The edifice had four rooms on the

ground-floor, and an attic sleeping-room above. Three of these rooms,

which were perhaps twelve feet by fifteen feet, were cells; the third

was occupied by the jailer's family. The family were now also occupying

the front cell,--a cheerful room commanding a view of the village

street and of the bay. A prisoner of a philosophic turn of mind, who

had committed some crime of sufficient magnitude to make him willing to

retire from the world for a season and rest, might enjoy himself here

very well.

The jailer exhibited his premises with an air of modesty. In the rear

was a small yard, surrounded by a board fence, in which the prisoner

took his exercise. An active boy could climb over it, and an

enterprising pig could go through it almost anywhere. The keeper said

that he intended at the next court to ask the commissioners to build

the fence higher and stop up the holes. Otherwise the jail was in good

condition. Its inmates were few; in fact, it was rather apt to be empty:

its occupants were usually prisoners for debt, or for some trifling

breach of the peace, committed under the influence of the liquor that

makes one “unco happy.” Whether or not the people of the region have

a high moral standard, crime is almost unknown; the jail itself is an

evidence of primeval simplicity. The great incident in the old jailer's

life had been the rescue of a well-known citizen who was confined on a

charge of misuse of public money. The keeper showed me a place in the

outer wall of the front cell, where an attempt had been made to batter

a hole through. The Highland clan and kinsfolk of the alleged defaulter

came one night and threatened to knock the jail in pieces if he was not

given up. They bruised the wall, broke the windows, and finally smashed

in the door and took their man away. The jailer was greatly excited at

this rudeness, and went almost immediately and purchased a pistol. He

said that for a time he did n't feel safe in the jail without it. The

mob had thrown stones at the upper windows, in order to awaken him, and

had insulted him with cursing and offensive language.

Having finished inspecting the building, I was unfortunately moved by I

know not what national pride and knowledge of institutions superior to

this at home, to say,

“This is a pleasant jail, but it doesn't look much like our great

prisons; we have as many as a thousand to twelve hundred men in some of

our institutions.”

“Ay, ay, I have heard tell,” said the jailer, shaking his head in pity,

“it's an awfu' place, an awfu' place,--the United States. I suppose it's

the wickedest country that ever was in the world. I don't know,--I don't

know what is to become of it. It's worse than Sodom. There was that

dreadful war on the South; and I hear now it's very unsafe, full of

murders and robberies and corruption.”

I did not attempt to correct this impression concerning my native land,

for I saw it was a comfort to the simple jailer, but I tried to put a

thorn into him by saying,

“Yes, we have a good many criminals, but the majority of them, the

majority of those in jails, are foreigners; they come from Ireland,

England, and the Provinces.”

But the old man only shook his head more solemnly, and persisted, “It's

an awfu' wicked country.”

Before I came away I was permitted to have an interview with the

sole prisoner, a very pleasant and talkative man, who was glad to see

company, especially intelligent company who understood about things, he

was pleased to say. I have seldom met a more agreeable rogue, or one so

philosophical, a man of travel and varied experiences. He was a lively,

robust Provincial of middle age, bullet-headed, with a mass of curly

black hair, and small, round black eyes, that danced and sparkled with

good humor. He was by trade a carpenter, and had a work-bench in his

cell, at which he worked on week-days. He had been put in jail on

suspicion of stealing a buffalo-robe, and he lay in jail eight months,

waiting for the judge to come to Baddeck on his yearly circuit. He did

not steal the robe, as he assured me, but it was found in his house, and

the judge gave him four months in jail, making a year in all,--a month

of which was still to serve. But he was not at all anxious for the end

of his term; for his wife was outside.

Jock, for he was familiarly so called, asked me where I was from. As I

had not found it very profitable to hail from the United States, and had

found, in fact, that the name United States did not convey any definite

impression to the average Cape Breton mind, I ventured upon the bold

assertion, for which I hope Bostonians will forgive me, that I was from

Boston. For Boston is known in the eastern Provinces.

“Are you?” cried the man, delighted. “I've lived in Boston, myself.

There's just been an awful fire near there.”

“Indeed!” I said; “I heard nothing of it.' And I was startled with the

possibility that Boston had burned up again while we were crawling along

through Nova Scotia.

“Yes, here it is, in the last paper.” The man bustled away and found his

late paper, and thrust it through the grating, with the inquiry, “Can

you read?”

Though the question was unexpected, and I had never thought before

whether I could read or not, I confessed that I could probably make

out the meaning, and took the newspaper. The report of the fire “near

Boston” turned out to be the old news of the conflagration in Portland,

Oregon!

Disposed to devote a portion of this Sunday to the reformation of this

lively criminal, I continued the conversation with him. It seemed that

he had been in jail before, and was not unaccustomed to the life. He was

not often lonesome; he had his workbench and newspapers, and it was a

quiet place; on the whole, he enjoyed it, and should rather regret it

when his time was up, a month from then.

Had he any family?

“Oh, yes. When the census was round, I contributed more to it than

anybody in town. Got a wife and eleven children.”

“Well, don't you think it would pay best to be honest, and live with

your family, out of jail? You surely never had anything but trouble from

dishonesty.”

“That's about so, boss. I mean to go on the square after this. But, you

see,” and here he began to speak confidentially, “things are fixed about

so in this world, and a man's got to live his life. I tell you how

it was. It all came about from a woman. I was a carpenter, had a good

trade, and went down to St. Peter's to work. There I got acquainted with

a Frenchwoman,--you know what Frenchwomen are,--and I had to marry her.

The fact is, she was rather low family; not so very low, you know, but

not so good as mine. Well, I wanted to go to Boston to work at my trade,

but she wouldn't go; and I went, but she would n't come to me, so in two

or three years I came back. A man can't help himself, you know, when he

gets in with a woman, especially a Frenchwoman. Things did n't go very

well, and never have. I can't make much out of it, but I reckon a man 's

got to live his life. Ain't that about so?”

“Perhaps so. But you'd better try to mend matters when you get out.

Won't it seem rather good to get out and see your wife and family

again?”

“I don't know. I have peace here.”

The question of his liberty seemed rather to depress this cheerful and

vivacious philosopher, and I wondered what the woman could be from whose

companionship the man chose to be protected by jail-bolts. I asked the

landlord about her, and his reply was descriptive and sufficient. He

only said,

“She's a yelper.”

Besides the church and the jail there are no public institutions in

Baddeck to see on Sunday, or on any other day; but it has very good

schools, and the examination-papers of Maud and her elder sister would

do credit to Boston scholars even. You would not say that the place

was stuffed with books, or overrun by lecturers, but it is an orderly,

Sabbath-keeping, fairly intelligent town. Book-agents visit it with

other commercial travelers, but the flood of knowledge, which is said

to be the beginning of sorrow, is hardly turned in that direction yet.

I heard of a feeble lecture-course in Halifax, supplied by local

celebrities, some of them from St. John; but so far as I can see, this

is a virgin field for the platform philosophers under whose instructions

we have become the well-informed people we are.

The peaceful jail and the somewhat tiresome church exhaust one's

opportunities for doing good in Baddeck on Sunday. There seemed to be no

idlers about, to reprove; the occasional lounger on the skeleton wharves

was in his Sunday clothes, and therefore within the statute. No one,

probably, would have thought of rowing out beyond the island to fish for

cod,--although, as that fish is ready to bite, and his associations

are more or less sacred, there might be excuses for angling for him

on Sunday, when it would be wicked to throw a line for another sort of

fish. My earliest recollections are of the codfish on the meeting-house

spires in New England,--his sacred tail pointing the way the wind went.

I did not know then why this emblem should be placed upon a house of

worship, any more than I knew why codfish-balls appeared always upon the

Sunday breakfast-table. But these associations invested this plebeian

fish with something of a religious character, which he has never quite

lost, in my mind.

Having attributed the quiet of Baddeck on Sunday to religion, we did not

know to what to lay the quiet on Monday. But its peacefulness continued.

I have no doubt that the farmers began to farm, and the traders to

trade, and the sailors to sail; but the tourist felt that he had come

into a place of rest. The promise of the red sky the evening before was

fulfilled in another royal day. There was an inspiration in the air that

one looks for rather in the mountains than on the sea-coast; it seemed

like some new and gentle compound of sea-air and land-air, which was the

perfection of breathing material. In this atmosphere, which seemed to

flow over all these Atlantic isles at this season, one endures a great

deal of exertion with little fatigue; or he is content to sit still, and

has no feeling of sluggishness. Mere living is a kind of happiness, and

the easy-going traveler is satisfied with little to do and less to see,

Let the reader not understand that we are recommending him to go to

Baddeck. Far from it. The reader was never yet advised to go to any

place, which he did not growl about if he took the advice and went

there. If he discovers it himself, the case is different. We know too

well what would happen. A shoal of travelers would pour down upon Cape

Breton, taking with them their dyspepsia, their liver-complaints, their

“lights” derangements, their discontent, their guns and fishing-tackle,

their big trunks, their desire for rapid travel, their enthusiasm about

the Gaelic language, their love for nature; and they would very likely

declare that there was nothing in it. And the traveler would probably be

right, so far as he is concerned. There are few whom it would pay to go

a thousand miles for the sake of sitting on the dock at Baddeck when

the sun goes down, and watching the purple lights on the islands and

the distant hills, the red flush in the horizon and on the lake, and the

creeping on of gray twilight. You can see all that as well elsewhere?

I am not so sure. There is a harmony of beauty about the Bras d'Or

at Baddeck which is lacking in many scenes of more pretension. No. We

advise no person to go to Cape Breton. But if any one does go, he need

not lack occupation. If he is there late in the fall or early in the

winter, he may hunt, with good luck, if he is able to hit anything with

a rifle, the moose and the caribou on that long wilderness peninsula

between Baddeck and Aspy Bay, where the old cable landed. He may also

have his fill of salmon fishing in June and July, especially on the

Matjorie River. As late as August, at the time, of our visit, a hundred

people were camped in tents on the Marjorie, wiling the salmon with

the delusive fly, and leading him to death with a hook in his nose. The

speckled trout lives in all the streams, and can be caught whenever he

will bite. The day we went for him appeared to be an off-day, a sort of

holiday with him.

There is one place, however, which the traveler must not fail to visit.

That is St. Ann's Bay. He will go light of baggage, for he must hire

a farmer to carry him from the Bras d'Or to the branch of St. Ann's

harbor, and a part of his journey will be in a row-boat. There is no

ride on the continent, of the kind, so full of picturesque beauty and

constant surprises as this around the indentations of St. Ann's harbor.

From the high promontory where rests the fishing village of St. Ann, the

traveler will cross to English Town. High bluffs, bold shores, exquisite

sea-views, mountainous ranges, delicious air, the society of a member of

the Dominion Parliament, these are some of the things to be enjoyed at

this place. In point of grandeur and beauty it surpasses Mt. Desert, and

is really the most attractive place on the whole line of the Atlantic

Cable. If the traveler has any sentiment in him, he will visit here, not

without emotion, the grave of the Nova Scotia Giant, who recently laid

his huge frame along this, his native shore. A man of gigantic height

and awful breadth of shoulders, with a hand as big as a shovel, there

was nothing mean or little in his soul. While the visitor is gazing at

his vast shoes, which now can be used only as sledges, he will be

told that the Giant was greatly respected by his neighbors as a man of

ability and simple integrity. He was not spoiled by his metropolitan

successes, bringing home from his foreign triumphs the same quiet and

friendly demeanor he took away; he is almost the only example of a

successful public man, who did not feel bigger than he was. He performed

his duty in life without ostentation, and returned to the home he loved

unspoiled by the flattery of constant public curiosity. He knew, having

tried both, how much better it is to be good than to be great. I should

like to have known him. I should like to know how the world looked to

him from his altitude. I should like to know how much food it took at

one time to make an impression on him; I should like to know what effect

an idea of ordinary size had in his capacious head. I should like to

feel that thrill of physical delight he must have experienced in merely

closing his hand over something. It is a pity that he could not have

been educated all through, beginning at a high school, and ending in a

university. There was a field for the multifarious new education! If we

could have annexed him with his island, I should like to have seen him

in the Senate of the United States. He would have made foreign nations

respect that body, and fear his lightest remark like a declaration of

war. And he would have been at home in that body of great men. Alas!

he has passed away, leaving little influence except a good example of

growth, and a grave which is a new promontory on that ragged coast swept

by the winds of the untamed Atlantic.

I could describe the Bay of St. Ann more minutely and graphically, if it

were desirable to do so; but I trust that enough has been said to make

the traveler wish to go there. I more unreservedly urge him to go there,

because we did not go, and we should feel no responsibility for his

liking or disliking. He will go upon the recommendation of two gentlemen

of taste and travel whom we met at Baddeck, residents of Maine and

familiar with most of the odd and striking combinations of land and

water in coast scenery. When a Maine man admits that there is any place

finer than Mt. Desert, it is worth making a note of.

On Monday we went a-fishing. Davie hitched to a rattling wagon something

that he called a horse, a small, rough animal with a great deal of “go”

in him, if he could be coaxed to show it. For the first half-hour

he went mostly in a circle in front of the inn, moving indifferently

backwards or forwards, perfectly willing to go down the road, but

refusing to start along the bay in the direction of Middle River. Of

course a crowd collected to give advice and make remarks, and women

appeared at the doors and windows of adjacent houses. Davie said he did

n't care anything about the conduct of the horse,--he could start him

after a while,--but he did n't like to have all the town looking at

him, especially the girls; and besides, such an exhibition affected the

market value of the horse. We sat in the wagon circling round and round,

sometimes in the ditch and sometimes out of it, and Davie “whaled” the

horse with his whip and abused him with his tongue. It was a pleasant

day, and the spectators increased.

There are two ways of managing a balky horse. My companion knew one of

them and I the other. His method is to sit quietly in the wagon, and at

short intervals throw a small pebble at the horse. The theory is that

these repeated sudden annoyances will operate on a horse's mind, and he

will try to escape them by going on. The spectators supplied my friend

with stones, and he pelted the horse with measured gentleness. Probably

the horse understood this method, for he did not notice the attack at

all. My plan was to speak gently to the horse, requesting him to go, and

then to follow the refusal by one sudden, sharp cut of the lash; to wait

a moment, and then repeat the operation. The dread of the coming lash

after the gentle word will start any horse. I tried this, and with a

certain success. The horse backed us into the ditch, and would probably

have backed himself into the wagon, if I had continued. When the animal

was at length ready to go, Davie took him by the bridle, ran by his

side, coaxed him into a gallop, and then, leaping in behind, lashed

him into a run, which had little respite for ten miles, uphill or down.

Remonstrance on behalf of the horse was in vain, and it was only on the

return home that this specimen Cape Breton driver began to reflect how

he could erase the welts from the horse's back before his father saw

them.

Our way lay along the charming bay of the Bras d'Or, over the sprawling

bridge of the Big Baddeck, a black, sedgy, lonesome stream, to Middle

River, which debouches out of a scraggy country into a bayou with ragged

shores, about which the Indians have encampments, and in which are the

skeleton stakes of fish-weirs. Saturday night we had seen trout jumping

in the still water above the bridge. We followed the stream up two or

three miles to a Gaelic settlement of farmers. The river here flows

through lovely meadows, sandy, fertile, and sheltered by hills,--a green

Eden, one of the few peaceful inhabited spots in the world. I could

conceive of no news coming to these Highlanders later than the defeat

of the Pretender. Turning from the road, through a lane and crossing a

shallow brook, we reached the dwelling of one of the original McGregors,

or at least as good as an original. Mr. McGregor is a fiery-haired

Scotchman and brother, cordial and hospitable, who entertained our

wayward horse, and freely advised us where the trout on his farm were

most likely to be found at this season of the year.

It would be a great pleasure to speak well of Mr. McGregor's residence,

but truth is older than Scotchmen, and the reader looks to us for truth

and not flattery. Though the McGregor seems to have a good farm, his

house is little better than a shanty, a rather cheerless place for the

“woman” to slave away her uneventful life in, and bring up her scantily

clothed and semi-wild flock of children. And yet I suppose there must

be happiness in it,--there always is where there are plenty of children,

and milk enough for them. A white-haired boy who lacked adequate

trousers, small though he was, was brought forward by his mother to

describe a trout he had recently caught, which was nearly as long as

the boy himself. The young Gael's invention was rewarded by a present of

real fish-hooks. We found here in this rude cabin the hospitality that

exists in all remote regions where travelers are few. Mrs. McGregor

had none of that reluctance, which women feel in all more civilized

agricultural regions, to “break a pan of milk,” and Mr. McGregor even

pressed us to partake freely of that simple drink. And he refused to

take any pay for it, in a sort of surprise that such a simple act of

hospitality should have any commercial value. But travelers themselves

destroy one of their chief pleasures. No doubt we planted the notion

in the McGregor mind that the small kindnesses of life may be made

profitable, by offering to pay for the milk; and probably the next

travelers in that Eden will succeed in leaving some small change there,

if they use a little tact.

It was late in the season for trout. Perhaps the McGregor was aware of

that when he freely gave us the run of the stream in his meadows, and

pointed out the pools where we should be sure of good luck. It was a

charming August day, just the day that trout enjoy lying in cool, deep

places, and moving their fins in quiet content, indifferent to the

skimming fly or to the proffered sport of rod and reel. The Middle

River gracefully winds through this Vale of Tempe, over a sandy bottom,

sometimes sparkling in shallows, and then gently reposing in the broad

bends of the grassy banks. It was in one of these bends, where the

stream swirled around in seductive eddies, that we tried our skill. We

heroically waded the stream and threw our flies from the highest bank;

but neither in the black water nor in the sandy shallows could any trout

be coaxed to spring to the deceitful leaders. We enjoyed the distinction

of being the only persons who had ever failed to strike trout in that

pool, and this was something. The meadows were sweet with the newly cut

grass, the wind softly blew down the river, large white clouds sailed

high overhead and cast shadows on the changing water; but to all these

gentle influences the fish were insensible, and sulked in their cool

retreats. At length in a small brook flowing into the Middle River we

found the trout more sociable; and it is lucky that we did so, for I

should with reluctance stain these pages with a fiction; and yet the

public would have just reason to resent a fish-story without any fish

in it. Under a bank, in a pool crossed by a log and shaded by a tree,

we found a drove of the speckled beauties at home, dozens of them a foot

long, each moving lazily a little, their black backs relieved by their

colored fins. They must have seen us, but at first they showed no desire

for a closer acquaintance. To the red ibis and the white miller and the

brown hackle and the gray fly they were alike indifferent. Perhaps the

love for made flies is an artificial taste and has to be cultivated.

These at any rate were uncivilized-trout, and it was only when we

took the advice of the young McGregor and baited our hooks with the

angleworm, that the fish joined in our day's sport. They could not

resist the lively wiggle of the worm before their very noses, and we

lifted them out one after an other, gently, and very much as if we were

hooking them out of a barrel, until we had a handsome string. It may

have been fun for them but it was not much sport for us. All the small

ones the young McGregor contemptuously threw back into the water. The

sportsman will perhaps learn from this incident that there are plenty

of trout in Cape Breton in August, but that the fishing is not

exhilarating.

The next morning the semi-weekly steamboat from Sydney came into the

bay, and drew all the male inhabitants of Baddeck down to the wharf;

and the two travelers, reluctant to leave the hospitable inn, and the

peaceful jail, and the double-barreled church, and all the loveliness of

this reposeful place, prepared to depart. The most conspicuous person on

the steamboat was a thin man, whose extraordinary height was made

more striking by his very long-waisted black coat and his very short

pantaloons. He was so tall that he had a little difficulty in keeping

his balance, and his hat was set upon the back of his head to preserve

his equilibrium. He had arrived at that stage when people affected as

he was are oratorical, and overflowing with information and good-nature.

With what might in strict art be called an excess of expletives, he

explained that he was a civil engineer, that he had lost his rubber

coat, that he was a great traveler in the Provinces, and he seemed to

find a humorous satisfaction in reiterating the fact of his familiarity

with Painsec junction. It evidently hovered in the misty horizon of his

mind as a joke, and he contrived to present it to his audience in that

light. From the deck of the steamboat he addressed the town, and then,

to the relief of the passengers, he decided to go ashore. When the boat

drew away on her voyage we left him swaying perilously near the edge

of the wharf, good-naturedly resenting the grasp of his coat-tail by

a friend, addressing us upon the topics of the day, and wishing us

prosperity and the Fourth of July. His was the only effort in the nature

of a public lecture that we heard in the Provinces, and we could not

judge of his ability without hearing a “course.”

Perhaps it needed this slight disturbance, and the contrast of this

hazy mind with the serene clarity of the day, to put us into the most

complete enjoyment of our voyage. Certainly, as we glided out upon the

summer waters and began to get the graceful outlines of the widening

shores, it seemed as if we had taken passage to the Fortunate Islands.

V

“One town, one country, is very like another;... there are

indeed minute discriminations both of places and manners,

which, perhaps, are not wanting of curiosity, but which a

traveller seldom stays long enough to investigate and

compare.”--DR. JOHNSON.

There was no prospect of any excitement or of any adventure on the

steamboat from Baddeck to West Bay, the southern point of the Bras d'Or.

Judging from the appearance of the boat, the dinner might have been an

experiment, but we ran no risks. It was enough to sit on deck forward of

the wheel-house, and absorb, by all the senses, the delicious day. With

such weather perpetual and such scenery always present, sin in this

world would soon become an impossibility. Even towards the passengers

from Sydney, with their imitation English ways and little insular

gossip, one could have only charity and the most kindly feeling.

The most electric American, heir of all the nervous diseases of all the

ages, could not but find peace in this scene of tranquil beauty, and

sail on into a great and deepening contentment. Would the voyage could

last for an age, with the same sparkling but tranquil sea, and the same

environment of hills, near and remote! The hills approached and fell

away in lines of undulating grace, draped with a tender color which

helped to carry the imagination beyond the earth. At this point the

narrative needs to flow into verse, but my comrade did not feel like

another attempt at poetry so soon after that on the Gut of Canso. A

man cannot always be keyed up to the pitch of production, though his

emotions may be highly creditable to him. But poetry-making in these

days is a good deal like the use of profane language,--often without the

least provocation.

Twelve miles from Baddeck we passed through the Barra Strait, or the

Grand Narrows, a picturesque feature in the Bras d'Or, and came into its

widest expanse. At the Narrows is a small settlement with a flag-staff

and a hotel, and roads leading to farmhouses on the hills. Here is a

Catholic chapel; and on shore a fat padre was waiting in his wagon

for the inevitable priest we always set ashore at such a place.

The missionary we landed was the young father from Arichat, and in

appearance the pleasing historical Jesuit. Slender is too corpulent a

word to describe his thinness, and his stature was primeval. Enveloped

in a black coat, the skirts of which reached his heels, and surmounted

by a black hat with an enormous brim, he had the form of an elegant

toadstool. The traveler is always grateful for such figures, and is not

disposed to quarrel with the faith which preserves so much of the ugly

picturesque. A peaceful farming country this, but an unremunerative

field, one would say, for the colporteur and the book-agent; and winter

must inclose it in a lonesome seclusion.

The only other thing of note the Bras d'Or offered us before we reached

West Bay was the finest show of medusm or jelly-fish that could be

produced. At first there were dozens of these disk-shaped, transparent

creatures, and then hundreds, starring the water like marguerites

sprinkled on a meadow, and of sizes from that of a teacup to a

dinner-plate. We soon ran into a school of them, a convention, a herd

as extensive as the vast buffalo droves on the plains, a collection as

thick as clover-blossoms in a field in June, miles of them, apparently;

and at length the boat had to push its way through a mass of them which

covered the water like the leaves of the pondlily, and filled the deeps

far down with their beautiful contracting and expanding forms. I did not

suppose there were so many jelly-fishes in all the world. What a repast

they would have made for the Atlantic whale we did not see, and what

inward comfort it would have given him to have swum through them once

or twice with open mouth! Our delight in this wondrous spectacle did

not prevent this generous wish for the gratification of the whale. It

is probably a natural human desire to see big corporations swallow up

little ones.

At the West Bay landing, where there is nothing whatever attractive,

we found a great concourse of country wagons and clamorous drivers, to

transport the passengers over the rough and uninteresting nine miles to

Port Hawkesbury. Competition makes the fare low, but nothing makes the

ride entertaining. The only settlement passed through has the promising

name of River Inhabitants, but we could see little river and less

inhabitants; country and people seem to belong to that commonplace order

out of which the traveler can extract nothing amusing, instructive, or

disagreeable; and it was a great relief when we came over the last hill

and looked down upon the straggling village of Port Hawkesbury and the

winding Gut of Canso.

One cannot but feel a respect for this historical strait, on account

of the protection it once gave our British ancestors. Smollett makes

a certain Captain C----tell this anecdote of George II. and his

enlightened minister, the Duke of Newcastle: “In the beginning of the

war this poor, half-witted creature told me, in a great fright, that

thirty thousand French had marched from Acadie to Cape Breton. 'Where

did they find transports?' said I. 'Transports!' cried he; 'I tell you,

they marched by land.' By land to the island of Cape Breton?' 'What! is

Cape Breton an island?' 'Certainly.' 'Ha! are you sure of that?' When I

pointed it out on the map, he examined it earnestly with his spectacles;

then taking me in his arms, 'My dear C----!' cried he, you always bring

us good news. I'll go directly and tell the king that Cape Breton is an

island.'”

Port Hawkesbury is not a modern settlement, and its public house is

one of the irregular, old-fashioned, stuffy taverns, with low rooms,

chintz-covered lounges, and fat-cushioned rocking-chairs, the decay and

untidiness of which are not offensive to the traveler. It has a low

back porch looking towards the water and over a mouldy garden, damp and

unseemly. Time was, no doubt, before the rush of travel rubbed off the

bloom of its ancient hospitality and set a vigilant man at the door

of the dining-room to collect pay for meals, that this was an abode of

comfort and the resort of merry-making and frolicsome provincials. On

this now decaying porch no doubt lovers sat in the moonlight, and vowed

by the Gut of Canso to be fond of each other forever. The traveler

cannot help it if he comes upon the traces of such sentiment. There

lingered yet in the house an air of the hospitable old time; the swift

willingness of the waiting-maids at table, who were eager that we should

miss none of the home-made dishes, spoke of it; and as we were not

obliged to stay in the hotel and lodge in its six-by-four bedrooms, we

could afford to make a little romance about its history.

While we were at supper the steamboat arrived from Pictou. We hastened

on board, impatient for progress on our homeward journey. But haste was

not called for. The steamboat would not sail on her return till morning.

No one could tell why. It was not on account of freight to take in or

discharge; it was not in hope of more passengers, for they were all on

board. But if the boat had returned that night to Pictou, some of the

passengers might have left her and gone west by rail, instead of wasting

two, or three days lounging through Northumberland Sound and idling in

the harbors of Prince Edward Island. If the steamboat would leave at

midnight, we could catch the railway train at Pictou. Probably the

officials were aware of this, and they preferred to have our company

to Shediac. We mention this so that the tourist who comes this way may

learn to possess his soul in patience, and know that steamboats are not

run for his accommodation, but to give him repose and to familiarize

him with the country. It is almost impossible to give the unscientific

reader an idea of the slowness of travel by steamboat in these regions.

Let him first fix his mind on the fact that the earth moves through

space at a speed of more than sixty-six thousand miles an hour. This is

a speed eleven hundred times greater than that of the most rapid

express trains. If the distance traversed by a locomotive in an hour is

represented by one tenth of an inch, it would need a line nine feet long

to indicate the corresponding advance of the earth in the same time.

But a tortoise, pursuing his ordinary gait without a wager, moves eleven

hundred times slower than an express train. We have here a basis of

comparison with the provincial steamboats. If we had seen a tortoise

start that night from Port Hawkesbury for the west, we should have

desired to send letters by him.

In the early morning we stole out of the romantic strait, and by

breakfast-time we were over St. George's Bay and round his cape, and

making for the harbor of Pictou. During the forenoon something in the

nature of an excursion developed itself on the steamboat, but it had so

few of the bustling features of an American excursion that I thought

it might be a pilgrimage. Yet it doubtless was a highly developed

provincial lark. For a certain portion of the passengers had the

unmistakable excursion air: the half-jocular manner towards each

other, the local facetiousness which is so offensive to uninterested

fellow-travelers, that male obsequiousness about ladies' shawls and

reticules, the clumsy pretense of gallantry with each other's wives,

the anxiety about the company luggage and the company health. It became

painfully evident presently that it was an excursion, for we heard

singing of that concerted and determined kind that depresses the spirits

of all except those who join in it. The excursion had assembled on the

lee guards out of the wind, and was enjoying itself in an abandon of

serious musical enthusiasm. We feared at first that there might be some

levity in this performance, and that the unrestrained spirit of the

excursion was working itself off in social and convivial songs. But it

was not so. The singers were provided with hymn-and-tune books, and

what they sang they rendered in long meter and with a most doleful

earnestness. It is agreeable to the traveler to see that the provincials

disport themselves within bounds, and that an hilarious spree here does

not differ much in its exercises from a prayer-meeting elsewhere. But

the excursion enjoyed its staid dissipation amazingly.

It is pleasant to sail into the long and broad harbor of Pictou on a

sunny day. On the left is the Halifax railway terminus, and three rivers

flow into the harbor from the south. On the right the town of Pictou,

with its four thousand inhabitants, lies upon the side of the ridge that

runs out towards the Sound. The most conspicuous building in it as we

approach is the Roman Catholic church; advanced to the edge of the town

and occupying the highest ground, it appears large, and its gilt cross

is a beacon miles away. Its builders understood the value of a striking

situation, a dominant position; it is a part of the universal policy of

this church to secure the commanding places for its houses of worship.

We may have had no prejudices in favor of the Papal temporality when we

landed at Pictou, but this church was the only one which impressed us,

and the only one we took the trouble to visit. We had ample time, for

the steamboat after its arduous trip needed rest, and remained some

hours in the harbor. Pictou is said to be a thriving place, and its

streets have a cindery appearance, betokening the nearness of coal mines

and the presence of furnaces. But the town has rather a cheap and rusty

look. Its streets rise one above another on the hillside, and, except

a few comfortable cottages, we saw no evidences of wealth in the

dwellings. The church, when we reached it, was a commonplace brick

structure, with a raw, unfinished interior, and weedy and untidy

surroundings, so that our expectation of sitting on the inviting hill

and enjoying the view was not realized; and we were obliged to descend

to the hot wharf and wait for the ferry-boat to take us to the steamboat

which lay at the railway terminus opposite. It is the most unfair thing

in the world for the traveler, without an object or any interest in the

development of the country, on a sleepy day in August, to express any

opinion whatever about such a town as Pictou. But we may say of it,

without offence, that it occupies a charming situation, and may have an

interesting future; and that a person on a short acquaintance can leave

it without regret.

By stopping here we had the misfortune to lose our excursion, a loss

that was soothed by no know ledge of its destination or hope of seeing

it again, and a loss without a hope is nearly always painful. Going out

of the harbor we encounter Pictou Island and Light, and presently see

the low coast of Prince Edward Island,--a coast indented and agreeable

to those idly sailing along it, in weather that seemed let down out of

heaven and over a sea that sparkled but still slept in a summer

quiet. When fate puts a man in such a position and relieves him of all

responsibility, with a book and a good comrade, and liberty to make

sarcastic remarks upon his fellow-travelers, or to doze, or to look

over the tranquil sea, he may be pronounced happy. And I believe that my

companion, except in the matter of the comrade, was happy. But I could

not resist a worrying anxiety about the future of the British Provinces,

which not even the remembrance of their hostility to us during our

mortal strife with the Rebellion could render agreeable. For I could

not but feel that the ostentatious and unconcealable prosperity of “the

States” over-shadows this part of the continent. And it was for once in

vain that I said, “Have we not a common land and a common literature,

and no copyright, and a common pride in Shakespeare and Hannah More

and Colonel Newcome and Pepys's Diary?” I never knew this sort of

consolation to fail before; it does not seem to answer in the Provinces

as well as it does in England.

New passengers had come on board at Pictou, new and hungry, and not

all could get seats for dinner at the first table. Notwithstanding the

supposed traditionary advantage of our birthplace, we were unable

to dispatch this meal with the celerity of our fellow-voyagers, and

consequently, while we lingered over our tea, we found ourselves at the

second table. And we were rewarded by one of those pleasing sights that

go to make up the entertainment of travel. There sat down opposite to

us a fat man whose noble proportions occupied at the board the space

of three ordinary men. His great face beamed delight the moment he came

near the table. He had a low forehead and a wide mouth and small

eyes, and an internal capacity that was a prophecy of famine to his

fellow-men. But a more good-natured, pleased animal you may never see.

Seating himself with unrepressed joy, he looked at us, and a great smile

of satisfaction came over his face, that plainly said, “Now my time has

come.” Every part of his vast bulk said this. Most generously, by his

friendly glances, he made us partners in his pleasure. With a Napoleonic

grasp of his situation, he reached far and near, hauling this and that

dish of fragments towards his plate, giving orders at the same time, and

throwing into his cheerful mouth odd pieces of bread and pickles in an

unstudied and preliminary manner. When he had secured everything within

his reach, he heaped his plate and began an attack upon the contents,

using both knife and fork with wonderful proficiency. The man's

good-humor was contagious, and he did not regard our amusement as

different in kind from his enjoyment. The spectacle was worth a journey

to see. Indeed, its aspect of comicality almost overcame its grossness,

and even when the hero loaded in faster than he could swallow, and was

obliged to drop his knife for an instant to arrange matters in his mouth

with his finger, it was done with such a beaming smile that a pig would

not take offense at it. The performance was not the merely vulgar thing

it seems on paper, but an achievement unique and perfect, which one is

not likely to see more than once in a lifetime. It was only when the

man left the table that his face became serious. We had seen him at his

best.

Prince Edward Island, as we approached it, had a pleasing aspect, and

nothing of that remote friendlessness which its appearance on the map

conveys to one; a warm and sandy land, in a genial climate, without

fogs, we are informed. In the winter it has ice communication with

Nova Scotia, from Cape Traverse to Cape Tormentine,--the route of the

submarine cable. The island is as flat from end to end as a floor. When

it surrendered its independent government and joined the Dominion, one

of the conditions of the union was that the government should build a

railway the whole length of it. This is in process of construction, and

the portion that is built affords great satisfaction to the islanders,

a railway being one of the necessary adjuncts of civilization; but that

there was great need of it, or that it would pay, we were unable to

learn.

We sailed through Hillsborough Bay and a narrow strait to Charlottetown,

the capital, which lies on a sandy spit of land between two rivers. Our

leisurely steamboat tied up here in the afternoon and spent the night,

giving the passengers an opportunity to make thorough acquaintance with

the town. It has the appearance of a place from which something has

departed; a wooden town, with wide and vacant streets, and the air of

waiting for something. Almost melancholy is the aspect of its freestone

colonial building, where once the colonial legislature held its

momentous sessions, and the colonial governor shed the delightful aroma

of royalty. The mansion of the governor--now vacant of pomp, because

that official does not exist--is a little withdrawn from the town,

secluded among trees by the water-side. It is dignified with a winding

approach, but is itself only a cheap and decaying house. On our way to

it we passed the drill-shed of the local cavalry, which we mistook for a

skating-rink, and thereby excited the contempt of an old lady of whom

we inquired. Tasteful residences we did not find, nor that attention

to flowers and gardens which the mild climate would suggest. Indeed,

we should describe Charlottetown as a place where the hollyhock in the

dooryard is considered an ornament. A conspicuous building is a large

market-house shingled all over (as many of the public buildings are),

and this and other cheap public edifices stand in the midst of a large

square, which is surrounded by shabby shops for the most part. The town

is laid out on a generous scale, and it is to be regretted that we could

not have seen it when it enjoyed the glory of a governor and court and

ministers of state, and all the paraphernalia of a royal parliament.

That the productive island, with its system of free schools, is about to

enter upon a prosperous career, and that Charlottetown is soon to become

a place of great activity, no one who converses with the natives can

doubt; and I think that even now no traveler will regret spending an

hour or two there; but it is necessary to say that the rosy inducements

to tourists to spend the summer there exist only in the guide-books.

We congratulated ourselves that we should at least have a night of

delightful sleep on the steamboat in the quiet of this secluded harbor.

But it was wisely ordered otherwise, to the end that we should improve

our time by an interesting study of human nature. Towards midnight, when

the occupants of all the state-rooms were supposed to be in profound

slumber, there was an invasion of the small cabin by a large and

loquacious family, who had been making an excursion on the island

railway. This family might remind an antiquated novel-reader of the

delightful Brangtons in “Evelina;” they had all the vivacity of the

pleasant cousins of the heroine of that story, and the same generosity

towards the public in regard to their family affairs. Before they had

been in the cabin an hour, we felt as if we knew every one of them.

There was a great squabble as to where and how they should sleep; and

when this was over, the revelations of the nature of their beds and

their peculiar habits of sleep continued to pierce the thin deal

partitions of the adjoining state-rooms. When all the possible

trivialities of vacant minds seemed to have been exhausted, there

followed a half-hour of “Goodnight, pa; good-night, ma;” “Goodnight,

pet;” and “Are you asleep, ma?” “No.” “Are you asleep, pa?” “No; go to

sleep, pet.” “I'm going. Good-night, pa; good-night, ma.” “Goodnight,

pet.” “This bed is too short.” “Why don't you take the other?” “I'm all

fixed now.” “Well, go to sleep; good-night.” “Good-night, ma; goodnight,

pa,”--no answer. “Good-night,pa.” “Goodnight, pet.” “Ma, are you

asleep?” “Most.” “This bed is all lumps; I wish I'd gone downstairs.”

“Well, pa will get up.” “Pa, are you asleep?” “Yes.” “It's better now;

good-night, pa.” “Goodnight, pet.” “Good-night, ma.” “Good-night, pet.”

And so on in an exasperating repetition, until every passenger on the

boat must have been thoroughly informed of the manner in which this

interesting family habitually settled itself to repose.

Half an hour passes with only a languid exchange of family feeling, and

then: “Pa?” “Well, pet.” “Don't call us in the morning; we don't want

any breakfast; we want to sleep.” “I won't.” “Goodnight, pa; goodnight,

ma. Ma?” “What is it, dear?” “Good-night, ma.” “Good-night, pet.”

Alas for youthful expectations! Pet shared her stateroom with a young

companion, and the two were carrying on a private dialogue during

this public performance. Did these young ladies, after keeping all the

passengers of the boat awake till near the summer dawn, imagine that

it was in the power of pa and ma to insure them the coveted forenoon

slumber, or even the morning snooze? The travelers, tossing in their

state-room under this domestic infliction, anticipated the morning

with grim satisfaction; for they had a presentiment that it would be

impossible for them to arise and make their toilet without waking up

every one in their part of the boat, and aggravating them to such an

extent that they would stay awake. And so it turned out. The family

grumbling at the unexpected disturbance was sweeter to the travelers

than all the exchange of family affection during the night.

No one, indeed, ought to sleep beyond breakfast-time while sailing along

the southern coast of Prince Edward Island. It was a sparkling morning.

When we went on deck we were abreast Cape Traverse; the faint outline of

Nova Scotia was marked on the horizon, and New Brunswick thrust out Cape

Tomentine to greet us. On the still, sunny coasts and the placid sea,

and in the serene, smiling sky, there was no sign of the coming tempest

which was then raging from Hatteras to Cape Cod; nor could one imagine

that this peaceful scene would, a few days later, be swept by a fearful

tornado, which should raze to the ground trees and dwelling-houses,

and strew all these now inviting shores with wrecked ships and drowning

sailors,--a storm which has passed into literature in “The Lord's-Day

Gale” of Mr Stedman.

Through this delicious weather why should the steamboat hasten, in order

to discharge its passengers into the sweeping unrest of continental

travel? Our eagerness to get on, indeed, almost melted away, and we were

scarcely impatient at all when the boat lounged into Halifax Bay, past

Salutation Point and stopped at Summerside. This little seaport is

intended to be attractive, and it would give these travelers great

pleasure to describe it, if they could at all remember how it looks. But

it is a place that, like some faces, makes no sort of impression on

the memory. We went ashore there, and tried to take an interest in the

ship-building, and in the little oysters which the harbor yields; but

whether we did take an interest or not has passed out of memory. A

small, unpicturesque, wooden town, in the languor of a provincial

summer; why should we pretend an interest in it which we did not feel?

It did not disturb our reposeful frame of mind, nor much interfere with

our enjoyment of the day.

On the forward deck, when we were under way again, amid a group reading

and nodding in the sunshine, we found a pretty girl with a companion and

a gentleman, whom we knew by intuition as the “pa” of the pretty girl

and of our night of anguish. The pa might have been a clergyman in a

small way, or the proprietor of a female boarding-school; at any rate,

an excellent and improving person to travel with, whose willingness to

impart information made even the travelers long for a pa. It was no

part of his plan of this family summer excursion, upon which he had come

against his wish, to have any hour of it wasted in idleness. He held

an open volume in his hand, and was questioning his daughter on its

contents. He spoke in a loud voice, and without heeding the timidity of

the young lady, who shrank from this public examination, and begged her

father not to continue it. The parent was, however, either proud of his

daughter's acquirements, or he thought it a good opportunity to shame

her out of her ignorance. Doubtless, we said, he is instructing her

upon the geography of the region we are passing through, its early

settlement, the romantic incidents of its history when French and

English fought over it, and so is making this a tour of profit as well

as pleasure. But the excellent and pottering father proved to be no

disciple of the new education. Greece was his theme and he got his

questions, and his answers too, from the ancient school history in his

hand. The lesson went on:

“Who was Alcibiades?

“A Greek.”

“Yes. When did he flourish?”

“I can't think.”

“Can't think? What was he noted for?”

“I don't remember.”

“Don't remember? I don't believe you studied this.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well, take it now, and study it hard, and then I'll hear you again.”

The young girl, who is put to shame by this open persecution, begins to

study, while the peevish and small tyrant, her pa, is nagging her with

such soothing remarks as, “I thought you'd have more respect for your

pride;” “Why don't you try to come up to the expectations of your

teacher?” By and by the student thinks she has “got it,” and the public

exposition begins again. The date at which Alcibiades “flourished” was

ascertained, but what he was “noted for” got hopelessly mixed with what

Themistocles was “noted for.” The momentary impression that the battle

of Marathon was fought by Salamis was soon dissipated, and the questions

continued.

“What did Pericles do to the Greeks?”

“I don't know.”

“Elevated 'em, did n't he? Did n't he elevate Pem?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Always remember that; you want to fix your mind on leading things.

Remember that Pericles elevated the Greeks. Who was Pericles?

“He was a”--

“Was he a philosopher?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, he was n't. Socrates was a philosopher. When did he flourish?”

And so on, and so on.

O my charming young countrywomen, let us never forget that Pericles

elevated the Greeks; and that he did it by cultivating the national

genius, the national spirit, by stimulating art and oratory and the

pursuit of learning, and infusing into all society a higher intellectual

and social life! Pa was this day sailing through seas and by shores that

had witnessed some of the most stirring and romantic events in the early

history of our continent. He might have had the eager attention of his

bright daughter if he had unfolded these things to her in the midst of

this most living landscape, and given her an “object lesson” that she

would not have forgotten all her days, instead of this pottering over

names and dates that were as dry and meaningless to him as they were

uninteresting to his daughter. At least, O Pa, Educator of Youth, if you

are insensible to the beauty of these summer isles and indifferent to

their history, and your soul is wedded to ancient learning, why do you

not teach your family to go to sleep when they go to bed, as the classic

Greeks used to?

Before the travelers reached Shediac, they had leisure to ruminate upon

the education of American girls in the schools set apart for them, and

to conjecture how much they are taught of the geography and history of

America, or of its social and literary growth; and whether, when they

travel on a summer tour like this, these coasts have any historical

light upon them, or gain any interest from the daring and chivalric

adventurers who played their parts here so long ago. We did not hear

pa ask when Madame de la Tour “flourished,” though “flourish” that

determined woman did, in Boston as well as in the French provinces. In

the present woman revival, may we not hope that the heroic women of our

colonial history will have the prominence that is their right, and that

woman's achievements will assume their proper place in affairs? When

women write history, some of our popular men heroes will, we trust,

be made to acknowledge the female sources of their wisdom and their

courage. But at present women do not much affect history, and they are

more indifferent to the careers of the noted of their own sex than men

are.

We expected to approach Shediac with a great deal of interest. It had

been, when we started, one of the most prominent points in our projected

tour. It was the pivot upon which, so to speak, we expected to swing

around the Provinces. Upon the map it was so attractive, that we once

resolved to go no farther than there. It once seemed to us that, if we

ever reached it, we should be contented to abide there, in a place so

remote, in a port so picturesque and foreign. But returning from the

real east, our late interest in Shediac seemed unaccountable to us.

Firmly resolved as I was to note our entrance into the harbor, I could

not keep the place in mind; and while we were in our state-room and

before we knew it, the steamboat Jay at the wharf. Shediac appeared

to be nothing but a wharf with a railway train on it, and a few shanty

buildings, a part of them devoted to the sale of whiskey and to cheap

lodgings. This landing, however, is called Point du Chene, and the

village of Shediac is two or three miles distant from it; we had a

pleasant glimpse of it from the car windows, and saw nothing in its

situation to hinder its growth. The country about it is perfectly level,

and stripped of its forests. At Painsec Junction we waited for the

train from Halifax, and immediately found ourselves in the whirl of

intercolonial travel. Why people should travel here, or why they should

be excited about it, we could not see; we could not overcome a feeling

of the unreality of the whole thing; but yet we humbly knew that we had

no right to be otherwise than awed by the extraordinary intercolonial

railway enterprise and by the new life which it is infusing into

the Provinces. We are free to say, however, that nothing can be

less interesting than the line of this road until it strikes the

Kennebeckasis River, when the traveler will be called upon to admire

the Sussex Valley and a very fair farming region, which he would like to

praise if it were not for exciting the jealousy of the “Garden of Nova

Scotia.” The whole land is in fact a garden, but differing somewhat from

the Isle of Wight.

In all travel, however, people are more interesting than land, and so

it was at this time. As twilight shut down upon the valley of the

Kennebeckasis, we heard the strident voice of pa going on with the

Grecian catechism. Pa was unmoved by the beauties of Sussex or by the

colors of the sunset, which for the moment made picturesque the scraggy

evergreens on the horizon. His eyes were with his heart, and that was in

Sparta. Above the roar of the car-wheels we heard his nagging inquiries.

“What did Lycurgus do then?”

Answer not audible.

“No. He made laws. Who did he make laws for?”

“For the Greeks.”

“He made laws for the Lacedemonians. Who was another great lawgiver?”

“It was--it was--Pericles.”

“No, it was n't. It was Solon. Who was Solon?”

“Solon was one of the wise men of Greece.”

“That's right. When did he flourish?”

When the train stops at a station the classics continue, and the

studious group attracts the attention of the passengers. Pa is well

pleased, but not so the young lady, who beseechingly says,

“Pa, everybody can hear us.”

“You would n't care how much they heard, if you knew it,” replies this

accomplished devotee of learning.

In another lull of the car-wheels we find that pa has skipped over to

Marathon; and this time it is the daughter who is asking a question.

“Pa, what is a phalanx?”

“Well, a phalanx--it's a--it's difficult to define a phalanx. It's a

stretch of men in one line,--a stretch of anything in a line. When did

Alexander flourish?”

This domestic tyrant had this in common with the rest of us, that he was

much better at asking questions than at answering them. It certainly was

not our fault that we were listeners to his instructive struggles with

ancient history, nor that we heard his petulant complaining to his cowed

family, whom he accused of dragging him away on this summer trip. We are

only grateful to him, for a more entertaining person the traveler does

not often see. It was with regret that we lost sight of him at St. John.

Night has settled upon New Brunswick and upon ancient Greece before we

reach the Kennebeckasis Bay, and we only see from the car windows

dimly a pleasant and fertile country, and the peaceful homes of thrifty

people. While we are running along the valley and coming under the

shadow of the hill whereon St. John sits, with a regal outlook upon a

most variegated coast and upon the rising and falling of the great tides

of Fundy, we feel a twinge of conscience at the injustice the passing

traveler must perforce do any land he hurries over and does not study.

Here is picturesque St. John, with its couple of centuries of history

and tradition, its commerce, its enterprise felt all along the coast and

through the settlements of the territory to the northeast, with its

no doubt charming society and solid English culture; and the summer

tourist, in an idle mood regarding it for a day, says it is naught!

Behold what “travels” amount to! Are they not for the most part the

records of the misapprehensions of the misinformed? Let us congratulate

ourselves that in this flight through the Provinces we have not

attempted to do any justice to them, geologically, economically, or

historically, only trying to catch some of the salient points of the

panorama as it unrolled itself. Will Halifax rise up in judgment against

us? We look back upon it with softened memory, and already see it again

in the light of history. It stands, indeed, overlooking a gate of the

ocean, in a beautiful morning light; and we can hear now the

repetition of that profane phrase, used for the misdirection of wayward

mortals,---“Go to Halifax!” without a shudder.

We confess to some regret that our journey is so near its end. Perhaps

it is the sentimental regret with which one always leaves the east, for

we have been a thousand miles nearer Ireland than Boston is. Collecting

in the mind the detached pictures given to our eyes in all these

brilliant and inspiring days, we realize afresh the variety, the extent,

the richness of these northeastern lands which the Gulf Stream pets and

tempers. If it were not for attracting speculators, we should delight

to speak of the beds of coal, the quarries of marble, the mines of gold.

Look on the map and follow the shores of these peninsulas and islands,

the bays, the penetrating arms of the sea, the harbors filled with

islands, the protected straits and sounds. All this is favorable to

the highest commercial activity and enterprise. Greece itself and its

islands are not more indented and inviting. Fish swarm about the shores

and in all the streams. There are, I have no doubt, great forests which

we did not see from the car windows, the inhabitants of which do

not show themselves to the travelers at the railway-stations. In the

dining-room of a friend, who goes away every autumn into the wilds of

Nova Scotia at the season when the snow falls, hang trophies--enormous

branching antlers of the caribou, and heads of the mighty moose--which I

am assured came from there; and I have no reason to doubt that the noble

creatures who once carried these superb horns were murdered by my friend

at long range. Many people have an insatiate longing to kill, once in

their life, a moose, and would travel far and endure great hardships

to gratify this ambition. In the present state of the world it is more

difficult to do it than it is to be written down as one who loves his

fellow-men.

We received everywhere in the Provinces courtesy and kindness, which

were not based upon any expectation that we would invest in mines or

railways, for the people are honest, kindly, and hearty by nature. What

they will become when the railways are completed that are to bind St.

John to Quebec, and make Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Newfoundland only

stepping-stones to Europe, we cannot say. Probably they will become like

the rest of the world, and furnish no material for the kindly persiflage

of the traveler.

Regretting that we could see no more of St. John, that we could scarcely

see our way through its dimly lighted streets, we found the ferry to

Carleton, and a sleeping-car for Bangor. It was in the heart of the

negro porter to cause us alarm by the intelligence that the customs

officer would, search our baggage during the night. A search is a blow

to one's self-respect, especially if one has anything dutiable. But as

the porter might be an agent of our government in disguise, we preserved

an appearance of philosophical indifference in his presence. It takes

a sharp observer to tell innocence from assurance. During the night,

awaking, I saw a great light. A man, crawling along the aisle of the

car, and poking under the seats, had found my traveling-bag and was

“going through” it.

I felt a thrill of pride as I recognized in this crouching figure an

officer of our government, and knew that I was in my native land.