Chapter 23

It was a gray morning when we embarked from St. John, and in fact a little drizzle of rain veiled the Martello tower, and checked, like the cross-strokes of a line engraving, the hill on which it stands. The miscellaneous shining of such a harbor appears best in a golden haze, or in the mist of a morning like this. We had expected days of fog in this region; but the fog seemed to have gone out with the high tides of the geography. And it is simple justice to these possessions of her Majesty, to say that in our two weeks' acquaintance of them they enjoyed as delicious weather as ever falls on sea and shore, with the exception of this day when we crossed the Bay of Fundy. And this day was only one of those cool interludes of low color, which an artist would be thankful to introduce among a group of brilliant pictures. Such a day rests the traveler, who is overstimulated by shifting scenes played upon by the dazzling sun. So the cool gray clouds spread a grateful umbrella above us as we ran across the Bay of Fundy, sighted the headlands of the Gut of Digby, and entered into the Annapolis Basin, and into the region of a romantic history. The white houses of Digby, scattered over the downs like a flock of washed sheep, had a somewhat chilly aspect, it is true, and made us long for the sun on them. But as I think of it now, I prefer to have the town and the pretty hillsides that stand about the basin in the light we saw them; and especially do I like to recall the high wooden pier at Digby, deserted by the tide and so blown by the wind that the passengers who came out on it, with their tossing drapery, brought to mind the windy Dutch harbors that Backhuysen painted. We landed a priest here, and it was a pleasure to see him as he walked along the high pier, his broad hat flapping, and the wind blowing his long skirts away from his ecclesiastical legs.

It was one of the coincidences of life, for which no one can account, that when we descended upon these coasts, the Governor-General of the Dominion was abroad in his Provinces. There was an air of expec- tation of him everywhere, and of preparation for his coming; his lordship was the subject of conversation on the Digby boat, his movements were chronicled in the newspapers, and the gracious bearing of the Governor and Lady Dufferin at the civic receptions, balls, and picnics was recorded with loyal satisfaction; even a literary flavor was given to the provincial journals by quotations from his lordship's condescension to letters in the "High Latitudes." It was not without pain, however, that even in this un-American region we discovered the old Adam of journalism in the disposition of the newspapers of St. John toward sarcasm touching the well-meant attempts to entertain the Governor and his lady in the provincial town of Halifax,--a disposition to turn, in short, upon the demonstrations of loyal worship the faint light of ridicule. There were those upon the boat who were journeying to Halifax to take part in the civic ball about to be given to their excellencies, and as we were going in the same direction, we shared in the feeling of satisfaction which prox-imity to the Great often excites.

We had other if not deeper causes of satisfaction. We were sailing along the gracefully moulded and tree-covered hills of the Annapolis Basin, and up the mildly picturesque river of that name, and we were about to enter what the provincials all enthusiastically call the Garden of Nova Scotia. This favored vale, skirted by low ranges of hills on either hand, and watered most of the way by the Annapolis River, extends from the mouth of the latter to the town of Windsor on the river Avon. We expected to see something like the fertile valleys of the Connecticut or the Mohawk. We should also pass through those meadows on the Basin of Minas which Mr. Longfellow has made more sadly poetical than any other spot on the Western Continent. It is,--this valley of the Annapolis,--in the belief of provincials, the most beautiful and blooming place in the world, with a soil and climate kind to the husbandman; a land of fair meadows, orchards, and vines. It was doubtless our own fault that this land did not look to us like a garden, as it does to the inhabitants of Nova Scotia; and it was not until we had traveled over the rest of the country, that we saw the appropriateness of the designation. The explanation is, that not so much is required of a garden here as in some other parts of the world. Excellent apples, none finer, are exported from this valley to England, and the quality of the potatoes is said to ap-proach an ideal perfection here. I should think that oats would ripen well also in a good year, and grass, for those who care for it, may be satisfactory. I should judge that the other products of this garden are fish and building-stone. But we anticipate. And have we forgotten the "murmuring pines and the hemlocks"? Nobody, I suppose, ever travels here without believing that he sees these trees of the imagination, so forcibly has the poet projected them upon the uni-versal consciousness. But we were unable to see them, on this route.

It would be a brutal thing for us to take seats in the railway train at Annapolis, and leave the ancient town, with its modern houses and remains of old fortifications, without a thought of the romantic history which saturates the region. There is not much in the smart, new restaurant, where a tidy waiting-maid skillfully depreciates our currency in exchange for bread and cheese and ale, to recall the early drama of the French discovery and settlement. For it is to the French that we owe the poetical interest that still invests, like a garment, all these islands and bays, just as it is to the Spaniards that we owe the romance of the Florida coast. Every spot on this continent that either of these races has touched has a color that is wanting in the prosaic settlements of the English.

Without the historical light of French adventure upon this town and basin of Annapolis, or Port Royal, as they were first named, I confess that I should have no longing to stay here for a week; notwithstanding the guide-book distinctly says that this harbor has "a striking resemblance to the beautiful Bay of Naples." I am not offended at this remark, for it is the one always made about a harbor, and I am sure the passing traveler can stand it, if the Bay of Naples can. And yet this tranquil basin must have seemed a haven of peace to the first discoverers.

It was on a lovely summer day in 1604, that the Sieur de Monts and his comrades, Champlain and the Baron de Poutrincourt, beating about the shores of Nova Scotia, were invited by the rocky gateway of the Port Royal Basin. They entered the small inlet, says Mr. Parkman, when suddenly the narrow strait dilated into a broad and tranquil basin, compassed with sunny hills, wrapped with woodland verdure and alive with waterfalls. Poutrincourt was delighted with the scene, and would fain remove thither from France with his family. Since Poutrincourt's day, the hills have been somewhat denuded of trees, and the waterfalls are not now in sight; at least, not under such a gray sky as we saw.

The reader who once begins to look into the French occupancy of Acadia is in danger of getting into a sentimental vein, and sentiment is the one thing to be shunned in these days. Yet I cannot but stay, though the train should leave us, to pay my respectful homage to one of the most heroic of women, whose name recalls the most romantic incident in the history of this region. Out of this past there rises no figure so captivating to the imagination as that of Madame de la Tour. And it is noticeable that woman has a curious habit of coming to the front in critical moments of history, and performing some exploit that eclipses in brilliancy all the deeds of contemporary men; and the exploit usually ends in a pathetic tragedy, that fixes it forever in the sympathy of the world. I need not copy out of the pages of De Charlevoix the well-known story of Madame de la Tour; I only wish he had told us more about her. It is here at Port Royal that we first see her with her husband. Charles de St. Etienne, the Chevalier de la Tour,--there is a world of romance in these mere names,--was a Huguenot nobleman who had a grant of Port Royal and of La Hive, from Louis XIII. He ceded La Hive to Razilli, the governor-in-chief of the provinces, who took a fancy to it, for a residence. He was living peacefully at Port Royal in 1647, when the Chevalier d'Aunay Charnise, having succeeded his brother Razilli at La Hive, tired of that place and removed to Port Royal. De Charnise was a Catholic; the difference in religion might not have produced any unpleasantness, but the two noblemen could not agree in dividing the profits of the peltry trade,--each being covetous, if we may so express it, of the hide of the savage continent, and determined to take it off for himself. At any rate, disagreement arose, and De la Tour moved over to the St. John, of which region his father had enjoyed a grant from Charles I. of England,--whose sad fate it is not necessary now to recall to the reader's mind,--and built a fort at the mouth of the river. But the differences of the two ambitious Frenchmen could not be composed. De la Tour obtained aid from Governor Winthrop at Boston, thus verifying the Catholic prediction that the Huguenots would side with the enemies of France on occasion. De Charnise received orders from Louis to arrest De la Tour; but a little preliminary to the arrest was the possession of the fort of St. John, and this he could not obtain, although be sent all his force against it. Taking advantage, however, of the absence of De la Tour, who had a habit of roving about, he one day besieged St. John. Madame de la Tour headed the little handful of men in the fort, and made such a gallant resistance that De Charnise was obliged to draw off his fleet with the loss of thirty-three men,--a very serious loss, when the supply of men was as distant as France. But De Charnise would not be balked by a woman; he attacked again; and this time, one of the garrison, a Swiss, betrayed the fort, and let the invaders into the walls by an unguarded entrance. It was Easter morning when this misfortune occurred, but the peaceful influence of the day did not avail. When Madame saw that she was betrayed, her spirits did not quail; she took refuge with her little band in a detached part of the fort, and there made such a bold show of defense, that De Charnise was obliged to agree to the terms of her surrender, which she dictated. No sooner had this unchivalrous fellow obtained possession of the fort and of this Historic Woman, than, overcome with a false shame that he had made terms with a woman, he violated his noble word, and condemned to death all the men, except one, who was spared on condition that he should be the executioner of the others. And the poltroon compelled the brave woman to witness the execution, with the added indignity of a rope round her neck,--or as De Charlevoix much more neatly expresses it, "obligea sa prisonniere d'assister a l'execution, la corde au cou."

To the shock of this horror the womanly spirit of Madame de la Tour succumbed; she fell into a decline and died soon after. De la Tour, himself an exile from his province, wandered about the New World in his customary pursuit of peltry. He was seen at Quebec for two years. While there, he heard of the death of De Charnise, and straightway repaired to St. John. The widow of his late enemy received him graciously, and he entered into possession of the estate of the late occupant with the consent of all the heirs. To remove all roots of bitterness, De la Tour married Madame de Charnise, and history does not record any ill of either of them. I trust they had the grace to plant a sweetbrier on the grave of the noble woman to whose faithfulness and courage they owe their rescue from obscurity. At least the parties to this singular union must have agreed to ignore the lamented existence of the Chevalier d'Aunay.

With the Chevalier de la Tour, at any rate, it all went well thereafter. When Cromwell drove the French from Acadia, he granted great territorial rights to De la Tour, which that thrifty adventurer sold out to one of his co-grantees for L16,000; and he no doubt invested the money in peltry for the London market.

As we leave the station at Annapolis, we are obliged to put Madame de la Tour out of our minds to make room for another woman whose name, and we might say presence, fills all the valley before us. So it is that woman continues to reign, where she has once got a foothold, long after her dear frame has become dust. Evangeline, who is as real a personage as Queen Esther, must have been a different woman from Madame de la Tour. If the latter had lived at Grand Pre, she would, I trust, have made it hot for the brutal English who drove the Acadians out of their salt-marsh paradise, and have died in her heroic shoes rather than float off into poetry. But if it should come to the question of marrying the De la Tour or the Evangeline, I think no man who was not engaged in the peltry trade would hesitate which to choose. At any rate, the women who love have more influence in the world than the women who fight, and so it happens that the sentimental traveler who passes through Port Royal without a tear for Madame de la Tour, begins to be in a glow of tender longing and regret for Evangeline as soon as he enters the valley of the Annapolis River. For myself, I expected to see written over the railway crossings the legend,

"Look out for Evangeline while the bell rings."

When one rides into a region of romance he does not much notice his speed or his carriage; but I am obliged to say that we were not hurried up the valley, and that the cars were not too luxurious for the plain people, priests, clergymen, and belles of the region, who rode in them. Evidently the latest fashions had not arrived in the Provinces, and we had an opportunity of studying anew those that had long passed away in the States, and of remarking how inappropriate a fashion is when it has ceased to be the fashion.

The river becomes small shortly after we leave Annapolis and before we reach Paradise. At this station of happy appellation we looked for the satirist who named it, but he has probably sold out and removed. If the effect of wit is produced by the sudden recognition of a remote resemblance, there was nothing witty in the naming of this station. Indeed, we looked in vain for the "garden" appearance of the valley. There was nothing generous in the small meadows or the thin orchards; and if large trees ever grew on the bordering hills, they have given place to rather stunted evergreens; the scraggy firs and balsams, in fact, possess Nova Scotia generally as we saw it,--and there is nothing more uninteresting and wearisome than large tracts of these woods. We are bound to believe that Nova Scotia has somewhere, or had, great pines and hemlocks that murmur, but we were not blessed with the sight of them. Slightly picturesque this valley is with its winding river and high hills guarding it, and perhaps a person would enjoy a foot-tramp down it; but, I think he would find little peculiar or interesting after he left the neighborhood of the Basin of Minas.

Before we reached Wolfville we came in sight of this basin and some of the estuaries and streams that run into it; that is, when the tide goes out; but they are only muddy ditches half the time. The Acadia College was pointed out to us at Wolfville by a person who said that it is a feeble institution, a remark we were sorry to hear of a place described as "one of the foremost seats of learning in the Province." But our regret was at once extinguished by the announcement that the next station was Grand Pre! We were within three miles of the most poetic place in North America.

There was on the train a young man from Boston, who said that he was born in Grand Pre. It seemed impossible that we should actually be near a person so felicitously born. He had a justifiable pride in the fact, as well as in the bride by his side, whom he was taking to see for the first time his old home. His local information, imparted to her, overflowed upon us; and when he found that we had read "Evangeline, his delight in making us acquainted with the scene of that poem was pleasant to see. The village of Grand Pre is a mile from the station; and perhaps the reader would like to know exactly what the traveler, hastening on to Baddeck, can see of the famous locality.

We looked over a well-grassed meadow, seamed here and there by beds of streams left bare by the receding tide, to a gentle swell in the ground upon which is a not heavy forest growth. The trees partly conceal the street of Grand Pre, which is only a road bordered by common houses. Beyond is the Basin of Minas, with its sedgy shore, its dreary flats; and beyond that projects a bold headland, standing perpendicular against the sky. This is the Cape Blomidon, and it gives a certain dignity to the picture.

The old Normandy picturesqueness has departed from the village of Grand Pre. Yankee settlers, we were told, possess it now, and there are no descendants of the French Acadians in this valley. I believe that Mr. Cozzens found some of them in humble circumstances in a village on the other coast, not far from Halifax, and it is there, probably, that the

"Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun, And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest."

At any rate, there is nothing here now except a faint tradition of the French Acadians; and the sentimental traveler who laments that they were driven out, and not left behind their dikes to rear their flocks, and cultivate the rural virtues, and live in the simplicity of ignorance, will temper his sadness by the reflection that it is to the expulsion he owes "Evangeline " and the luxury of his romantic grief. So that if the traveler is honest, and examines his own soul faithfully, he will not know what state of mind to cherish as he passes through this region of sorrow.

Our eyes lingered as long as possible and with all eagerness upon these meadows and marshes which the poet has made immortal, and we regretted that inexorable Baddeck would not permit us to be pilgrims for a day in this Acadian land. Just as I was losing sight of the skirt of trees at Grand Pre, a gentleman in the dress of a rural clergyman left his seat, and complimented me with this remark: "I perceive, sir, that you are fond of reading."

I could not but feel flattered by this unexpected discovery of my nature, which was no doubt due to the fact that I held in my hand one of the works of Charles Reade on social science, called "Love me Little, Love me Long," and I said, "Of some kinds, I am."

"Did you ever see a work called 'Evangeline'?"

"Oh, yes, I have frequently seen it."

"You may remember," continued this Mass of Information, "that there is an allusion in it to Grand Pre. That is the place, sir!"

"Oh, indeed, is that the place? Thank you."

"And that mountain yonder is Cape Blomidon, blow me down, you know."

And under cover of this pun, the amiable clergyman retired, unconscious, I presume, of his prosaic effect upon the atmosphere of the region. With this intrusion of the commonplace, I suffered an eclipse of faith as to Evangeline, and was not sorry to have my attention taken up by the river Avon, along the banks of which we were running about this time. It is really a broad arm of the basin, extending up to Windsor, and beyond in a small stream, and would have been a charming river if there had been a drop of water in it. I never knew before how much water adds to a river. Its slimy bottom was quite a ghastly spectacle, an ugly gash in the land that nothing could heal but the friendly returning tide. I should think it would be confusing to dwell by a river that runs first one way and then the other, and then vanishes altogether.

All the streams about this basin are famous for their salmon and shad, and the season for these fish was not yet passed. There seems to be an untraced affinity between the shad and the strawberry; they appear and disappear in a region simultaneously. When we reached Cape Breton, we were a day or two late for both. It is impossible not to feel a little contempt for people who do not have these luxuries till July and August; but I suppose we are in turn despised by the Southerners because we do not have them till May and June. So, a great part of the enjoyment of life is in the knowledge that there are people living in a worse place than that you inhabit.

Windsor, a most respectable old town round which the railroad sweeps, with its iron bridge, conspicuous King's College, and handsome church spire, is a great place for plaster and limestone, and would be a good location for a person interested in these substances. Indeed, if a man can live on rocks, like a goat, he may settle anywhere between Windsor and Halifax. It is one of the most sterile regions in the Province. With the exception of a wild pond or two, we saw nothing but rocks and stunted firs, for forty-five miles, a monotony unrelieved by one picturesque feature. Then we longed for the "Garden of Nova Scotia," and understood what is meant by the name.

A member of the Ottawa government, who was on his way to the Governor-General's ball at Halifax, informed us that this country is rich in minerals, in iron especially, and he pointed out spots where gold had been washed out. But we do not covet it. And we were not sorry to learn from this gentleman, that since the formation of the Dominion, there is less and less desire in the Provinces for annexation to the United States. One of the chief pleasures in traveling in Nova Scotia now is in the constant reflection that you are in a foreign country; and annexation would take that away.

It is nearly dark when we reach the head of the Bedford Basin. The noble harbor of Halifax narrows to a deep inlet for three miles along the rocky slope on which the city stands, and then suddenly expands into this beautiful sheet of water. We ran along its bank for five miles, cheered occasionally by a twinkling light on the shore, and then came to a stop at the shabby terminus, three miles out of town. This basin is almost large enough to float the navy of Great Britain, and it could lie here, with the narrows fortified, secure from the attacks of the American navy, hovering outside in the fog. With these patriotic thoughts we enter the town. It is not the fault of the railroad, but its present inability to climb a rocky hill, that it does not run into the city. The suburbs are not impressive in the night, but they look better then than they do in the daytime; and the same might be said of the city itself. Probably there is not anywhere a more rusty, forlorn town, and this in spite of its magnificent situation.