Cape-Breton Isle is worthy of respect. With a population, if I remember rightly, of some thirty thousand, and an area of more than three thousand square miles, embracing an inland sea, or salt lake, deep enough for ships-of-the-line, it has, in addition to its great mineral wealth, a soil capable of large crops. Wheat and corn do not thrive, but barley, oats, potatoes, and many root-crops grow abundantly. And I may add, in passing, that Nova Scotia, over which I travelled on my return, is worthy of a better repute. On the ocean side there is, indeed, a strip from twenty to forty miles wide which is barren as the "Secesh" heart of Halifax. The rock here is metamorphic, the soil worthless, the scenery rugged, yet mean. Gold is found,—in such quantities that the labor of each man yields a gross result of two hundred and fifty-six dollars a year! Deduct the cost of crushing the quartz, (for it is found only in quartz,) and there is left—how much? But the Gulf-coast, and the side of the province next the Bay of Fundy, have a carboniferous and red-sandstone formation, with a soil often deep and rich, faultless meads and river-intervals, and a tender shore-scenery, relieved by ruddy cliffs, and high, broken, burnt-umber islands.
But we are sailing up the Gulf. And while the day shines and wanes, and the shades of evening, suffused with tender color, fall gently, and the Gulf to the west is deeply touched with veiled, but glowing crimson, when the sun is down, and on the other hand Cape-Breton Isle puts forth, close to our course, two small representative islands, red sandstone, charmingly ruddy under the sunset light,—while a mild wind, sinking, but not ceasing, bears us on through daylight, twilight, starlight, each perfect of its kind,—let me introduce our voyagers severally to the reader.
First, the ship, surely a voyager as much as any of us!
"Benjamin S. Wright," fore-and-aft schooner, one hundred and thirty-six tons, built by McKay, and worthy of him,—deep, sharp, broad of beam, a fine seaboat, swift as the wind, a little long-masted for regular sea-voyaging, but, with this partial exception, faultless.
Next will naturally come the responsible originator and operator of the expedition.
William Bradford, artist,—slight in stature, delicate, though marked, in feature,—sensitive, pious, ardent, absorbed,—not of distinguished mental power, though of active mind, aside from his profusion, but within it a proper man of genius, with no superior, so far as I know, but Turner, and no equal but Stanfield, in his power to render the sea in action.
The passengers were twelve in number; but with them I include two others, who have a claim to that company. Here they are.
A——, "the Colonel,"—a lieutenant in the regular army, retired on account of illness,—brave, intelligent, cultivated, a Churchman undeveloped in spiritual sense, rough in his sports, proud as a Roman, his whole being, indeed, built up on manly, Roman pride,—a Greenland voyager, and better read than any man I have met in the literature of Northern travel.
H——, "the Judge,"—cool-headed, warm-hearted, compassionate, irascible, liberal, witty, easy speaker and fine conversationist, with an inexhaustible fund of sense, anecdote, candor, and good heart.
L——, navy-surgeon,—also retired on account of extreme illness,—a sensible, quiet, good man and gentleman.