St. Croix River falling into Passamaquoddy Bay is, for its whole length of one hundred and twenty-five miles, the national boundary. Upon Neutral Island near its mouth was made the first unfortunate settlement of Acadie by the Sieur De Monts in 1604. He named both the island and river St. Croix because, just above, various bends of the river and its branches form a cross. The St. Croix discharges the noted Schoodic Lakes far up in the forest on the boundary, which have become a favorite resort of sportsmen and anglers. It brings down many logs, and the sawmills have made the prosperity of the twin towns of Calais and St. Stephen on its banks, which represent the two nations, and being very friendly, are connected by a bridge. Upon a peninsula near the mouth of the river is St. Andrews, in New Brunswick, which like most other places in this pleasant region is developing into a summer resort. When De Monts came and landed, he named the country Acadie because that was what the Indians called it. The Indians, however, in pronouncing it made the sound like "a-quoddy," and from this is derived Passamaquoddy, the name of the bay into which the St. Croix flows, the word Pesmo-acadie meaning the "pollock place of plenty," as these fish were prolific there. It is at North Perry in Maine, a village on the western verge of the bay and between Eastport and Calais, that the Government has erected the obelisk marking the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude, midway between the equator and the pole.
The Canadian Province of New Brunswick into which we have now come in the journey "Down East" is described as "a region of ships, of pine trees, salmon, deals, hemlock bark and most excellent red granite." The first impression upon entering it is made by the highways, where the change from the United States to the British methods is shown in the reversal of the usual "rule of the road," from right to left. The vehicles all "keep to the left," and hence the appropriate proverb:
"The rule of the road is a parodox quite,
In driving your carriage along,
If you keep to the left you are sure to go right,
If you keep to the right you go wrong."
We have also got into the region of the Bay of Fundy, the Portuguese Bayo Fondo, or "deep bay," with its high tides. This huge inlet of the Atlantic is about one hundred and seventy miles long, thrust up between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, stretching from thirty to fifty miles wide between them. Its eastern extremity branches into two arms, the northern, Chignecto Bay, about thirty miles long, and the southern, Minas Channel, opening into the Minas Basin. Besides the St. Croix, this bay also receives St. John River, the greatest in the Maritime Provinces. The bay is remarkable for its tides, which are probably the highest in the world, owing to the concentration of the tidal wave by the approach of the shores and the gradual shoaling of the bottom. The very moderate tides of the Massachusetts coast increase to about nine feet rise at the mouth of the Kennebec. The configuration of the Maine coast to the northeast further increases this to fifteen or twenty feet rise at Eastport. Beyond this the Bay of Fundy is a complete cul-de-sac, and the farther the tide gets in the higher it rises. In St. John harbor it becomes twenty-one to twenty-three feet, and farther up it is greater, in Minas Basin the rise reaching forty feet, and in Chignecto Bay, near the upper extremity, sixty feet. These tremendous tides cause peculiar phenomena; they make the rivers seem to actually run up-hill at times, while the tidal "bore" or wall of water, which is the advance of the flood, moves up the streams and across the extensive mudflats with the speed of a railway train, often catching the unsuspecting who may be wandering over them. The elaborate wharves made for boat-landings are built up like three-story houses, with different floor-levels, so as to enable the vessels to get alongside at all stages of the tide.
THE CITY OF ST. JOHN.
Upon St. John's Day, June 24, 1604, De Monts piloted by Champlain, coasting along the monotonous forest-clad shores of New Brunswick, sailed into the mouth of the River St. John, and named it in memory of the day of its discovery. Off the entrance is Partridge Island, now surmounted by a lighthouse and what is said to be the most powerful fog-siren in the world, whose hoarse blasts can be heard thirty miles away, a necessity in this region, where fogs prevail so generally. From the Negro Head, a high hill on the western shore, a breakwater extends across the harbor entrance, and within is the city covering the hills running down to the water as the inner harbor curves toward the westward. Timber being the great export, lumber-piles and timber-ships fill the wharves, sawdust floats on the water, and vessels are anchored out in the stream loading deals from lighters.
De Monts found some Micmac Indians at St. John, but he did not remain there, and it was not until 1634 when Claude de St. Estienne, Sieur de la Tour, a Huguenot who had been granted Acadie by King Charles I. of England, came out with his son and built a fort at the mouth of St. John River, the son Charles de la Tour for some years afterwards holding it and enjoying a lucrative trade. The French King, however, had made a rival grant of Acadie, which had come into possession of Charles de Menon, Sieur d'Aulnay Charnisay, who made a settlement at Annapolis Royal over in Nova Scotia, where De Monts took the remnant of his unfortunate colony from St. Croix River. D'Aulnay envied La Tour his prosperity, provoked a quarrel, accused him of treason, and finally came over and blockaded the mouth of the St. John with six ships. La Tour, anticipating this attack, had implored aid from the Huguenots in France, and they sent out the ship "Clement" with one hundred and forty men, which remained in the offing. One cloudy night La Tour and his wife slipped out of the harbor on the ebb tide in a boat and got aboard the ship, which carried them to Boston, where additional help was sought. Old Cotton Mather records that the Puritans hearkened unto him and searched the Scriptures to see if there was Divine sanction for interference in a French quarrel. They found sundry texts that were interpreted as possibly forbidding such action, but they nevertheless concluded "it was as lawful for them to give La Tour succor as it was for Joshua to aid the Gideonites against the rest of the Canaanites, or for Jehoshaphat to aid Jehoram against Moab." So they quickly started five Massachusetts ships that way, with which La Tour raised the blockade and drove D'Aulnay across the Bay of Fundy back to his own post of Annapolis Royal. D'Aulnay did not rest content under defeat, however, but two years later again attacked the fort. Two spies, who had gained entrance in the disguise of monks, informed him La Tour was absent, the fort being under command of his wife. Expecting easy victory, he ordered an assault, but was met by Madame La Tour at the head of the little garrison and defeated with heavy loss. He awaited another opportunity, and in 1647 when La Tour was away on a trading expedition, leaving but a small force, he again attacked. During three days his assaults were repulsed, but a treacherous sentry admitted the enemy within the fort. Even then the brave woman fought with such intrepidity that she was given her own terms of capitulation. No sooner had she surrendered, however, than D'Aulnay violated his agreement and hanged the garrison, compelling Madame La Tour to witness it with a halter around her neck. This so preyed upon her mind that a few days afterwards she died of a broken heart. Whittier has woven this story into his romantic poem St. John, describing La Tour returning to the fort and expecting his wife's greeting, but instead he found its walls shattered and the buildings burnt. A priest appearing, La Tour seizes him, demanding an explanation, and thus spoke the priest: