We land at this uninviting place, and after some searchings amongst a half-dazed population, who seem to show surprise, mingled with resentment at our intrusion, we find a ramshackle country buggy, in which to drive fourteen miles to Sydney. We are told the track is rough. The light is fast failing. There is only one narrow seat for the somewhat bulky driver and ourselves. For a moment I cannot see where I am to sit. But every second it is growing darker, and with no alternative I scrambled up, and fortunately being small, I was wedged in securely, and during the very rough drive was perhaps the less shaken. The four-year-old pony sorely tried my nerves at starting by shying, and turning sharp round—a fatal thing in these lockless buggies. Our good driver—the local constable—negotiated the worst places, the holes and rocks and frail wooden bridges, with great care, and saved us all he could. Still, we suffered severely.
We passed the two great coal mines of Sydney which supply all the coal to Newfoundland, and much to Canada. It is soft and dirty fuel. We saw the lights of the miners' cottages, and passed some of them returning with an electric lamp in their caps. On and on we drove. The twilight failed, and a pale crescent moon rose, but its dim light only added half-seen terrors to the road, as we drove through dusky pine forests and heard the rush of unseen waters, whilst the lamp of the luggage cart in advance looked like a will-o'-the-wisp dancing up and down. On and on for what seemed like hours. No dwelling-places in sight, no human being seen, no sound heard, as we crossed in the darkness that isthmus of land between Glace Bay and Sydney.
After a weary while we at last saw the welcome lights of Sydney, and drove into a sleeping village, only to be told that every room in the place was full. At length a priest and a commercial traveller, fellow-passengers from the steamer, found a room, which they gave up to me. It was in a little public-house, but the bed-room was lighted by electricity!
We were up at 5 a.m., and in a torrent of rain drove to the station. The Intercolonial Railway only opened this new line from Sydney across Cape Breton eight months ago. It communicates with the magnificent harbour of Sydney and the exceedingly beautiful Bras d'Or Lakes. We travelled by the shores of several "guts," or inlets from the harbour. Then opens out the broad expanse of the lake itself, surrounded by mountains, along the foot of which we are creeping. The name Bras d'Or has such a pretty origin. When the French, in exploring Cape Breton, first saw the lake, it was autumn, and the shores were all golden in their autumnal glory; hence they called it the Golden Arm. For miles we are passing along its shores, which the waters are gently lapping under a leaden sky, and the great mountains covered with fir forests, rise gloomy and forbidding on the further shore, bathed in clouds and mists. It is a beautiful, though depressing scene. The lake closes in, and its banks nearly meet at the Narrows, which the train crosses on an iron trestle bridge from one shore to the other. There is excellent fishing in this lake, and now that the railway has opened it up, it is sure to become known and largely visited.
At the Straits of Canso, the contents of the train, including passengers, are embarked on a ferry, and cross the narrow strip of sea that divides Cape Breton from the mainland of Canada. We disembark in Nova Scotia.
CHAPTER II.
THE MARITIME PROVINCES, AND THROUGH LAKE AND FOREST TO THE QUEEN CITY.
A long railway journey. The light streaming into the berth of a sleeper of the Intercolonial Railway awakes me, and a few minutes afterwards I emerge from between the curtains, to see the morning sun on the dancing waters of Bedford Basin, the land-locked harbour of Halifax. For about ten miles we are skirting this harbour before running into the town.
Most people would agree in thinking Halifax a charming place. There is nothing in the primitive city, with its straight, narrow streets of wooden houses, most of which require a new coat of paint, to make it so. There are few public buildings worthy of notice. But the charm lies in its position on the peninsula of land, with the deep bend in the North-west Arm on one side, and Chebuctoo Bay on the other, leading into Bedford Basin. Thus there is water on every side.