When De Monts and his party were ready to continue their cruise from this sheltered haven, behold! one of their company—a priest—was missing; and though they waited several days, making signals and firing guns, such sounds were drowned by the roar of the surf, and never reached the ears of the poor man lost in the woods. At last, supposing that the wanderer had fallen a prey to wild animals, the explorers sailed away, and, finding the entrance to Annapolis Basin, began to make preparation for colonizing at Port Royal.
Sixteen days after the disappearance of the priest, some of De Monts' men returning to this Bay to examine the minerals more thoroughly, were attracted by a signal fluttering on the shore, and, hurrying to land, there found the poor priest, emaciated and exhausted. What strange sensations the distracted wanderer must have experienced in these forest wilds, with starvation staring him in the face! No charms did he see in this scene which now delights us; and doubtless, with Selkirk, would have exclaimed, "Better dwell in the midst of alarms, than to live in this beautiful place."
This strange wild coast and the Cod Banks of Newfoundland were known to and visited by foreign fishermen at a very early date. "The Basques, that primeval people, older than history," frequented these shores; and it is supposed that such fisheries existed even before the voyage of Cabot (1497). There is strong evidence of it in 1504; while in 1527 fourteen fishing vessels—Norman, Portuguese, and Breton—were seen at one time in the Bay of Fundy, near the present site of St. John.
When we question our hostess as to the species of finny tribes found in these waters, she mentions menhaden, mackerel, alewives, herring, etc; and, proud of her English, concludes her enumeration with, "Dat is de most only feesh dey kotch here."
Another drive of many miles along the shore brings us to the neighborhood of the very jumping off place of the Scotian peninsula, with novel sights to attract the attention en route. Now and then a barn with thatched roof; here a battered boat overturned to make Piggy and family a habitation; there heavy and lumbering three wheeled carts, with the third rotator placed between the shafts, so the poor ox who draws the queer vehicle hasn't much room to spare.
Huge loads of hay pass us, and other large farm wagons, drawn invariably by handsome oxen. The ox-yokes are a constant marvel to us; for, divested of the bows, they are fastened with leather straps to the bases of the poor creatures' horns. Evidently there is no "S. P. C. A." here; and we cannot convince those with whom we converse on the subject that the poor animals would pull better by their shoulders than by their heads. At several places we see the clumsiest windmills for sawing wood; not after the fashion of the picturesque buildings which Don Quixote so valiantly opposed, but a heavy frame work or scaffolding about twelve feet in height. To this is attached a wheel of heaviest plank with five fans, each one shaped like the arm of a Greek cross, and the whole so ponderous we are confident that nothing less than a hurricane could make it revolve.
Here is a house entirely covered with diamond shaped shingles, having also double and triple windows, which are long, narrow, and pointed at the top, yet not suggestive of the gothic.
Next we pass a point where an old post inn once stood, and where the curiously curved, twisted, and strangely complicated iron frame which once held the swinging sign still remains.
Many a bleak ride did that mounted carrier have, no doubt, in days of yore; and we can imagine him saying:—
"The night is late, I dare not wait, the winds begin to blow,
And ere I gain the rocky plain there'll be a storm, I know!"