I must confess that I had a romantic sort of idea in visiting Sydney; a desire to return by way of the Bras d'Or lake, the "arm of gold," the inland sea of Cape Breton, that makes the island itself only a border for the water in its interior. And as the navigation is frequently performed by the Micmac Indians, in their birch-bark canoes, I determined to be a voyageur for the nonce, and engage a couple of Micmacs to paddle me homewards, at least one day's journey. The wigwams of the tribe were pitched about a mile from the town, and I proposed a visit to their camp as an afternoon's amusement. Picton readily assented, and down we went to the wharf, where the landlady assured us we would find some of the tribe. These Indians, often expert coopers, are employed to barrel up fish; the busy wharf was covered with laborers, hard at work, heading and hooping ship loads of salt mackerel; and among the workmen were some with the unmistakable lozenge eyes, high cheek-bones, and rhubarb complexion of the native American. Upon inquiry, we were introduced to one of the Rhubarbarians. He was a little fellow, not in leggings and quill-embroidered hunting-shirt, with belt of wampum and buckskin moccasins; armed with bow and arrow, tomahawk and scalping-knife; such as one would expect to navigate a wild, romantic lake with, in birch-bark canoe; but a pinched-up specimen of a man, in a seedy black suit, out of which rose a broad, flat face, like the orb of a sun-flower, bearing one side the aboriginal black eye, and on the other the civilized, surrounded with the blue and purple halo of battle. We had barely opened our business with the Indian, when a bonny Scotchman, a fellow-cooper of salt mackerel, introduced himself:
"Oh, ye visit the Micmacs the day?"
No answer.
"De'il a canoe has he to tak ye there" (the Indian slunk away), "but I'll tak ye tull 'em for one and saxpence, in a gude boat."
The fellow had such an honest face, and the offer was so fair and earnest, that Picton's and my own trifling prejudices were soon overcome, and we directed Malcolm, for that was his name, to bring his boat under the inn-windows after the dinner-hour. I regret to say that we found Malcolm tolerably drunk after dinner, with a leaky boat, under the inn-windows. And farther, I am pained to state the national characteristic was developed in Malcolm drunk, from which there was no appeal to Malcolm sober, for he insisted upon double fare, and time was pressing. To this we assented, after a brief review of former prejudices. We got in the boat and put off. We had barely floated away into the beautiful landscape when a fog swept over us, and Malcolm's nationality again woke up. He would have four times as much as he had charged in the first instance, or "he'd tak us over, and land us on the ither side of the bay."
Then Picton's nationality woke up, and he unbuttoned his mackintosh. "Now, sir," said he to Malcolm, as he rose from his seat in the boat, his head gracefully inclined towards his starboard shirt-collar, and his two tolerably large fists arrayed in order of battle within a few brief inches of the delinquent's features, "did I understand you to say that you had some idea of taking this gentleman and myself to the other side of the bay?"
There was a boy in our boat—a fair-haired, blue-eyed representative of Nova Scotia; a sea-boy, with a dash of salt-water in his ruddy cheeks, who had modestly refrained from taking part in the dispute.
"Come, now," said he to Malcolm, "pull away, and let us get the gentlemen up to the camp," and he knit his boy brow with determination, as if he meant to have it settled according to contract.
"Yes," said Picton, nodding at the boy, "and if he don't"——
"I'm pullin' an't I?" quoth the descendant of King Duncan, a little frightened, and suiting the action to the word; "I'm a-pewlin," and here his oar missed the water, and over he tumbled with a great splash in the bottom of the boat. "I'm a-pewlin," he whined, as he regained his seat and the oar, "and all I want is to hae my honest airnins."