Acadia / or, A Month with the Blue Noses

by Frederic S. Cozzens

And, indeed, Canseau can have my feeble testimony in confirmation. It is a grand marine highway, having steep hills on the Cape Breton Island side, and lofty mountains on the other shore; a full, broad, mile-wide space between them; and reaching from end to end, fifteen miles, from the Atlantic to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. As I took leave of Ear-rings, at Plaister Cove, and wrapped myself up in my cloak in the stern-sheets of the row-boat to cross the strait, the full Acadian moon, larger than any United States moon, rose out of her sea-fog, and touched mountain, height, and billow, with effulgence. It was a scene of Miltonic grandeur. After the ruined walls of Louisburgh, and the dark caverns of Sydney, comes Canseau, with its startling splendors! Truly this is a wonderful country.

Another night in a clean Nova-Scotian inn on the mountain-side, a deep sleep, and balmy awakening in the clear air. Yet some exceptions must be taken to the early sun in this latitude. To get up at two o'clock or four; to ride thirty or forty miles to breakfast, with a convalescent appetite, is painful. But yet, "to him, who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language." Admiration and convalescent hunger make a very good team in this beautiful country. You look out upon the unfathomable Gulf of St. Lawrence, and feel as if you were an unfathomable gulf yourself. You ride through lofty woods, with a tantalizing profusion of living edibles in your path; at every moment a cock-rabbit is saying his prayers before the horses; at every bosk and bole a squirrel stares at you with unwinking eyes, and Robin Yellow-bill hops, runs, and flies before the coach within reach of the driver's whip, sans peur! And this too is the land of moose and cariboo: here the hunters, on snow-shoes, track the huge animals in the season; and moose and cariboo, in the Halifax markets, are cheaper than beef with us. And to think this place is only a four days' journey from the metropolis, in the languid winter! By the ashes of Nimrod, I will launch myself on a pair of snow-shoes, and shoot a moose in the snow before I am twelve months older, as sure as these ponies carry us to breakfast!

"How far are we from breakfast, driver?"

"Twenty miles," quoth Jehu.

Now I had been anxious to get a sight of our ponies, for the sake of estimating their speed and endurance; but at this time they were not in sight. For the coach we (three passengers) were in, was built like an omnibus-sleigh on wheels, with a high seat and "dasher" in front, so that we could not see what it was that drew our ark, and therefore I climbed up in the driver's perch to overlook our motors. There were four of them; little, shaggy, black ponies, with bunchy manes and fetlocks, not much larger than Newfoundland dogs. Yet they swept us along the road as rapidly as if they were full-sized horses, up hill and down, without visible signs of fatigue. And now we passed through another French settlement, "Tracadie," and again the Norman kirtle and petticoat of the pastoral, black-eyed Evangelines hove in sight, and passed like a day-dream. And here we are in an English settlement, where we enjoy a substantial breakfast, and then again ride through the primeval woods, with an occasional glimpse of the broad Gulf and its mountain scenery, until we come upon a pretty inland village, by name Antigonish.

At Antigonish, we find a bridal party, and the pretty English landlady offers us wine and cake with hospitable welcome; and a jovial time of it we have until we are summoned, by crack of whip, to ride over to West River.

I must say that the natural prejudices we have against Nova Scotia are ill-placed, unjust, and groundless. The country itself is the great redeeming feature of the province, and a very large portion of it is uninfested by Scotchmen. Take for instance the road we are now travelling. For hours we bowl along a smooth turnpike, in the midst of a deep forest: although scarce a week has elapsed since these gigantic trees were leafless, yet the foliage has sprung forth as it were with a touch, and now the canopy of leaves about us, and overhead, is so dense as scarcely to afford a twinkle of light from the sun. Sometimes we ride by startling precipices and winding streams; sometimes overlook an English settlement, with its rolling pasture-lands, bare of trees and rich in verdure. At last we approach the precincts of Northumberland Strait, and are cleverly carried into New Glasgow. It is fast-day, and the shops are closed in Sabbath stillness; but on the sign-boards of the village one reads the historic names of "Ross" and "Cameron;" and "Graham," "McGregor" and "McDonald." What a pleasant thing it must be to live in that village! Here too I saw for the first time in the province a thistle! But it was a silver-plated one, in the blue bonnet of a "pothecary's boy." A metallic effigy of the original plant, that had bloomed some generations ago in native land. There was poetry in it, however, even on the brow of an incipient apothecary.

When we had put New Glasgow behind us, we felt relieved, and rode along the marshes on the border of the strait that divides the Province from Prince Edward's Island, so named in honor of his graceless highness the Duke of Kent, Edward, father of our Queen Victoria. Thence we came forth upon higher ground, the coal-mines of Pictou; and here is the great Pictou railway, from the mines to the town, six miles in length. Then by rolling hill and dale down to West River, where John Frazer keeps the Twelve-Mile House. This inn is clean and commodious; only twelve miles from Pictou; and, reader, I would advise you, as twelve miles is but a short distance, to go to Pictou without stopping at West River. For John Frazer's is a house of petty annoyances. From the moment you enter, you feel the insolence of the surly, snarling landlord, and his no less gifted lady; the same old greed which has no eye except for money; the miserly table, for which you are obliged to pay before hand; the lack of attendance; the abundance of impertinence. Just as you are getting into bed you are peremptorily called to the door to pay for your room, which haply you had forgotten; if you want your boots brushed the answer is, "Perhaps"—if you request them to call you in the morning, for the only stage, they say, "Just as it happens;" (indeed, it was only by accident that the stage-driver discovered he had one more trunk than his complement of passengers, and so awoke me just as the coach was on the point of departure;) if you can submit to all this, then, reader, go to Twelve-Mile House, at West River.

We left this last outpost of the Scotch settlements with pleasure. After all, there is a secret feeling of joy in contrasting one's self with such wretched, penurious, mis-made specimens of the human animal. And from this time henceforth I shall learn to prize my own language, and not be carried away by any catch-penny Scotch synonyms, such as the lift for the sky, and the gloamin for twilight. And as forpoortith cauld, and pauky chiel, I leave them to those who can appreciate them:

"Farewell, farewell, beggarly Scotland,
Cold and beggarly poor countrie;
If ever I cross thy border again,
The muckle deil maun carry me."