CHAPTER III.

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks."

This is the opening line of the poem: this is the striking feature of Nova Scotia scenery. The shores welcome us with waving masses of foliage, but not the foliage of familiar woods. As we travel on this hilly road to the Acadian settlement, we look up and say, "This is the forest primeval," but it is the forest of the poem, not that of our childhood. There is not, in all this vast greenwood, an oak, an elm, a chestnut, a beech, a cedar or maple. For miles and miles, we see nothing against the clear blue sky but the spiry tops of evergreens; or perhaps, a gigantic skeleton, "a rampike," pine or hemlock, scathed and spectral, stretches its gaunt outline above its fellows. Spruces and firs, such as adorn our gardens, cluster in never-ending profusion; and aromatic and unwonted odor pervades the air—the spicy breath of resinous balsams. Sometimes the sense is touched with a new fragrance, and presentlywe see a buckthorn, white with a thousand blossoms. These, however, only meet us at times. The distinct and characteristic feature of the forest is conveyed in that one line of the poet.

And yet another feature of the forest primeval presents itself, not less striking and unfamiliar. From the dead branches of those skeleton pines and hemlocks, theserampikes, hang masses of white moss, snow-white, amid the dark verdure. An actor might wear such a beard in the play of King Lear. Acadian children wore such to imitate "grandpère," centuries ago; Cowley's trees are "Patricians," these are Patriarchs.

——"the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic,Stand like harpers hoar with beards that rest on their bosoms."

We are re-reading Evangeline line by line. And here, at this turn of the road, we encounter two Acadian peasants. The man wears an old tarpaulin hat, home-spun worsted shirt, and tarry canvas trowsers; innovation has certainly changed him, in costume at least, from the Acadian of our fancy; but the pretty brown-skinned girl beside him, with lustrous eyes, and soft black hair under her hood, with kirtle of antique form, and petticoat of holiday homespun, is true to tradition. There is nothingmodern in the face or drapery of that figure. She might have stepped out of Normandy a century ago,

"Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-ringsBrought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heir-loom,Handed down from mother to child, through long generations."

Alas! the ear-rings are worn out with age! but save them, the picture is very true to the life. As we salute the pair, we learn they have been walking on their way since dawn from distant Chezzetcook: the man speaks English with a strong French accent; the maiden only the language of her people on the banks of the Seine.

"Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers,Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the way-side:Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses."

Who can help repeating the familiar words of the idyl amid such scenery, and in such a presence?

"We are now approaching a Negro settlement," said mycompagnon de voyageafter we had passed the Acadians; "and we will take a fresh horse at Deer's Castle; this is rough travelling." In a few minutes we saw a log house perched on a bare boneof granite that stood out on a ragged hill-side, and presently another cabin of the same kind came in view. Then other scare-crow edifices wheeled in sight as we drove along; all forlorn, all patched with mud, all perched on barren knolls, or gigantic bars of granite, high up, like ragged redoubts of poverty, armed at every window with a formidable artillery of old hats, rolls of rags, quilts, carpets, and indescribable bundles, or barricaded with boards to keep out the air and sunshine.

"You do not mean to say those wretched hovels are occupied by living beings?" said I to my companion.

"Oh yes," he replied, with a quiet smile, "these are your people, yourfugitives."

"But, surely," said I, "they do not live in those airy nests during your intensely cold winters?"

"Yes," replied my companion, "and they have a pretty hard time of it. Between you and I," he continued, "they are a miserable set of devils; they won't work, and they shiver it out here as well as they can. During the most of the year they are in a state of abject want, and then they are very humble. But in the strawberry season they make a little money, and while it lasts are fat and saucy enough. We can't do anything with them, they won't work. There they are in their cabins, just asyou see them, a poor, woe-begone set of vagabonds; a burden upon the community; of no use to themselves, nor to anybody else."

"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope, who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, here in his happy valley."

"Now then," said my companion, as this trite quotation was passing through my mind. The wagon had stopped in front of a little, weather-beaten house that kept watch and ward over an acre of greensward, broken ever and anon with a projecting bone of granite, and not only fenced with stone, but dotted also with various mounds of pebbles, some as large as a paving-stone, and some much larger. This was "Deer's Castle." In front of the castle was a swing-sign with an inscription:

"William Deer, who lives here,Keeps the best of wine and beer,Brandy, and cider, and other good cheer;Fish, and ducks, and moose, and deer.Caught or shot in the woods just here,With cutlets, or steaks, as will appear;If you will stop you need not fearBut you will be well treated byWilliam Deer,And by Mrs.Deer, his dearest, deary dear!"

I quote from memory. The precise words have escaped me, but the above is the substance of the sense, and the metre is accurate.

It was a little, weather-beaten shanty of boards, that clung like flakes to the frame-work. A show-box of a room, papered with select wood-cuts fromPunchand theIllustrated London News, was the grand banquet-hall of the castle. And indeed it was a castle compared with the wretched redoubts of poverty around it. Here we changed horses, or rather we exchanged our horse, for a diminutive, bantam pony, that, under the supervision of "Bill," was put inside the shafts and buckled up to the very roots of the harness. This Bill, the son and heir of the Castellen, was a good-natured yellow boy, about fifteen years of age, with such a development of under-lip and such a want of development elsewhere, that his head looked like a scoop. There was an infinite fund of humor in Billy, an uncontrollable sense of the comic, that would break out in spite of his grave endeavors to put himself under guard. It exhibited itself in his motions and gestures, in the flourish of his hands as he buckled up the pony, in the looseness of his gait, the swing of his head, and the roll of his eyes. His very language was pregnant with mirth; thus:

"Bill!"

"Cheh, cheh, sir? cheh."

"Is your father at home?"

"Cheh, cheh, father? cheh, cheh."

"Yes, your father?"

"Cheh, cheh, at home, sah? cheh."

"Yes, is your father at home?"

"I guess so, cheh, cheh."

"What is the matter with you, Bill? what are you laughing about?"

"Cheh, cheh, I don't know, sah, cheh, cheh."

"Well, take out the horse, and put in the pony; we want to go to Chizzencook."

"Cheh, Cheh'z'ncook? Yes, sah," and so with that facetious gait and droll twist of the elbow, Bill swings himself against the horse and unbuckles him in a perpetual jingle of merriment.

"And this," said I to my companion, as we looked from the door-step of the shanty upon the spiry tops of evergreens in the valley below us, and at the wretched log-huts that were roosting up on the bare rocks around us, "this is the negro settlement?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Are all the negro settlements in Nova Scotia as miserable, as this?"

"Yes," he answered; "you can tell a negro settlement at once by its appearance."

"Then," I thought to myself, "I would, for poorCuffee's sake, that much-vaunted British sympathy and British philanthropy had something better to show to an admiring world than the prospect around Deer's Castle."

Notwithstanding the very generous banquet spread before the eyes of the traveller, on the sign-board, we were compelled to dismiss the pleasant fiction of the poet upon the announcement of Mrs. Deer, that "Nathin was in de house 'cept bacon," and she "reckoned" she "might have an egg or two by de time we got back from Chizzincook."

"But you have plenty of trout here in these streams?"

"Oh! yes, plenty, sah."

"Then let Bill catch some trout for us."

And so the pony being strapped up and buckled to the wagon, we left the negro settlement for the French settlement. They are all in "settlements," here, the people of this Province. Centuries are mutable, but prejudices never alter in the Colonies.

But we are again in the Acadian forest—a truce to moralizing—let us enjoy the scenery. The road we are on is but a few miles from the sea-shore, but the ocean is hidden from view by the thick woods. As we ride along, however, we skirt the edges of coves and inlets that frequently break in upon thelandscape. There is a chain of fresh-water lakes also along this road; sometimes we cross a bridge over a rushing torrent; sometimes a calm expanse of water, doubling the evergreens at its margin, comes in view; anon a gleam of sapphire strikes through the verdure, and an ocean-bay with its shingly beach curves in and out between the piny slopes. At last we reach the crest of a hill, and at the foot of the road is another bridge, a house, a wharf, and two or three coasters at anchor in a diminutive harbor. This is "Three Fathom Harbor." We are within a mile of Chezzetcook.

Now if it were not for Pony we should press on to the settlement, but we must give Pony a respite. Pony is an enthusiastic little fellow, but his lungs are too much for him, they have blown him out like a bagpipe. A mile farther and then eleven miles back to Deer's Castle, is a great undertaking for so small an animal. In the meanwhile, we will ourselves rest and take some "home-brewed" with the landlord, who is harbor-master, inn-keeper, store-keeper, fisherman, shipper, skipper, mayor, and corporation of Three Fathom Harbor, beside being father of the town, for all the children in it are his own. A draught of foaming ale, a whiff or two from a clay pipe, a look out of the window to be assured that Pony had subsided, and we take leave of the corporate authority of Three Fathom Harbor, and are once more on the road.

One can scarcely draw near to a settlement of these poor refugees without a feeling of pity for the sufferings they have endured; and this spark of pity quickly warms and kindles into indignation when we think of the story of hapless Acadia—the grievous wrong done those simple-minded, harmless, honest people, by the rapacious, free-booting adventurers of merry England, and those precious filibusters, our Pilgrim Fathers.

The early explorations of the French in the young hemisphere which Columbus had revealed to the older half of the world, have been almost entirely obscured by the greater events which followed. Nearly a century after the first colonies were established in New France, New England was discovered. I shall not dwell upon the importance of this event, as it has been so often alluded to by historians and others; and, indeed, I believe it is generally acknowledged now, that the finding of the continent itself would have been a failure had it not been for the discovery of Massachusetts. As this, however, happened long after the establishment of Acadia, and as the Pilgrim Fathers did not interfere with their French neighbors for a surprising length of time, it will be as well not to expatiate upon it at present. In the course of a couple of centuries or so, I shall have occasion to allude to it, in connection with the story of the neutral French.

In the year 1504, says the Chronicle, some fishermen from Brittany discovered the island that now forms the eastern division of Nova Scotia, and named it "Cape Breton." Two years after, Dennys of Harfleur, made a rude chart of the vast sheet of water that stretches from Cape Breton and Newfoundland to the mainland. In 1534, Cartier, sailing under the orders of the French Admiral, Chabot, visited the coast of Newfoundland, crossed the gulf Dennys had seen and described twenty-eight years before, and took possession of the country around it, in the name of the king, his master. As Cartier was recrossing the Gulf, on his return voyage, he named the waters he was sailing upon "St. Lawrence," in honor of that saint whose day chanced to turn up on the calendar at that very happy time. According to some accounts, Baron de Lery established a settlement here as early as 1518. Some authorities state that a French colony was planted on the St. Lawrence as early as 1524, and soon after others were formed in Canada and Nova Scotia. In 1535, Cartier again crossed the waters of the Gulf, and following the course of theriver, penetrated into the interior until he reached an island upon which was a hill; this he named "Mont Real." Various adventurers followed these first discoverers and explorers, and the coast was from time to time visited by French ships, in pursuit of the fisheries.

Among these expeditions, one of the most eminent was that of Champlain, who, in the year 1609, penetrated as far south as the head waters of the Hudson River; visited Lake George and the cascades of Ticonderoga; and gave his own name to the lake which lies between the proud shores of New York and New England. Thence le Sr. Champlain, "Capitaine pour le Roy," travelled westward, as far as the country of the Hurons, giving to the discovered territory the title of Nouvelle France; and to the lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron, the names of St. Louis, Mer Douce, and Grand Lac; which any person can see by referring to the original chart in the State library of New York. But before these discoveries of Champlain, an important step had been taken by the parent government. In the year 1603, an expedition, under the patronage of Henry IV., sailed for the New World. The leader of this was a Protestant gentleman, by name De Monts. As the people under his command were both Protestants and Catholics, De Monts had permission given in his charter to establish, as one of the fundamental laws of the Colony, the free exercise of "religious worship," upon condition of settling in the country, and teaching the Roman Catholic faith to the savages. Heretofore, all the countries discovered by the French had been called New France, but in De Monts' Patent, that portion of the territory lying east of the Penobscot and embracing the present provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and part of Maine was named "Acadia."

The little colony under De Monts flourished in spite of the rigors of the climate, and its commander, with a few men, explored the coast on the St. Lawrence and the bay of Fundy, as well as the rivers of Maine, the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Saco and Casco Bay, and even coasted as far south as the long, hook-shaped cape that is now known in all parts of the world as the famous Cape Cod. In a few years, the settlement began to assume a smiling aspect; houses were erected, and lands were tilled; the settlers planted seeds and gathered the increase thereof; gardens sprang out of the wilderness, peace and order reigned everywhere, and the savage tribes around viewed the kind, light-hearted colonists with admiration and fraternal good-will. It is pleasant to read this part of the chronicle—oftheir social meetings in the winter at the banqueting hall; of the order of "Le Bon Temps," established by Champlain; of the great pomp and insignia of office (a collar, a napkin, and staff) of the grand chamberlain, whose government only lasted for a day, when he was supplanted by another; of their dinners in the sunshine amid the corn-fields; of their boats, banners, and music on the water; of their gentleness, simplicity, and honest, hearty enjoyments. These halcyon days soon came to an end. The infamous Captain Argall, hearing that a number of white people had settled in this hyperborean region, set sail from Jamestown for the colony, in a ship of fourteen guns, in the midst of a profound peace, to burn, pillage, and slaughter the intruders upon the territory of Virginia! Finding the people unprepared for defence, his enterprise was successful. Argall took possession of the lands, in the name of the King of England, laid waste some of the settlements, burned the forts, and, under circumstances of peculiar perfidy, induced a number of the poor Acadians to go with him to Jamestown. Here they were treated as pirates, thrown into prison, and sentenced to be executed. Argall, who it seems had some touch of manhood in his nature, upon this confessed to the Governor, Sir Thomas Dale, that these people hada patent from the King of France, which he had stolen from them and concealed, and that they were not pirates, but simply colonists. Upon this, Sir Thomas Dale was induced to fit out an expedition to dislodge the rest of them from Acadia. Three ships were got ready, the brave Captain Argall was appointed Commander-in-chief, and the first colony was terminated by fire and sword before the end of the year. This was in 1613, ten years after the first planting of Acadia.

"Some of the settlers," says the Chronicle, "finding resistance to be unavailing, fled to the woods." What became of them history does not inform us, but with a graceful appearance of candor, relates that the transaction itself "was not approved of by the court of England, nor resented by that of France." Five years afterward we find Captain Argall appointed Deputy-Governor of Virginia.

This outrage was the initial letter only of a series that for nearly a century and a half after, made the successive colonists of Acadia the prey of their rapacious neighbors. We shall take up the story from time to time, gentle reader, as we voyage around and through the province. Meanwhile let us open our eyes again upon the present, for just below us lies the village and harbor of Chezzetcook.

A conspiracy of earth and air and ocean had certainly broken out that morning, for the ominous lines of Fog and Mist were hovering afar off upon the boundaries of the horizon. Under the crystalline azure of a summer sky, the water of the harbor had an intensity of color rarely seen, except in the pictures of the most ultra-marine painters. Here and there a green island or a fishing-boat rested upon the surface of the tranquil blue. For miles and miles the eye followed indented grassy slopes, that rolled away on either side of the harbor, and the most delicate pencil could scarcely portray the exquisite line of creamy sand that skirted their edges and melted off in the clear margin of the water. Occasional little cottages nestle among these green banks, not the Acadian houses of the poem, "with thatched roofs, and dormer windows projecting," but comfortable, homely-looking buildings of modern shapes, shingled and un-weather-cocked. No cattle visible, no ploughs nor horses. Some of the men are at work in the open air; all in tarpaulin hats, all in tarry canvas trowsers. These are boat-builders and coopers. Simple, honest, and good-tempered enough; you see how courteously they salute us as we ride by them. In front of every house there is a knot of curious little faces; Young Acadia is out this bright day, and although Young Acadia has not a clean face on, yet its hair is of thedarkest and softest, and its eyes are lustrous and most delicately fringed. Yonder is one of the veterans of the place, so we will tie Pony to the fence, and rest here.

"Fine day you have here," said my companion.

"Oh yes! oh yes!" (with great deference and politeness).

"Can you give us anything in the way of refreshment? a glass of ale, or a glass of milk?"

"Oh no!" (with the unmistakable shrug of the shoulders); "we no have milk, no have ale, no have brandy, no have noting here: ah! we very poor peep' here." (Poor people here.)

"Can we sit down and rest in one of your houses?"

"Oh yes! oh yes!" (with great politeness and alacrity); "walk in, walk in; we very poor peep', no milk, no brandy: walk in."

The little house is divided by a partition. The larger half is the hall, the parlor, kitchen, and nursery in one. A huge fire-place, an antique spinning-wheel, a bench, and two settles, or high-backed seats, a table, a cradle and a baby very wide awake, complete the inventory. In the apartment adjoining is a bin that represents, no doubt, a French bedstead of the early ages. Everything is suggestive of boat-builders, of Robinson Crusoework, of undisciplined hands, that have had to do with ineffectual tools. As you look at the walls, you see the house is built of timbers, squared and notched together, and caulked with moss or oakum.

"Very poor peep' here," says the old man, with every finger on his hands stretched out to deprecate the fact. By the fire-side sits an old woman, in a face all cracked and seamed with wrinkles, like a picture by one of the old masters. "Yes," she echoes, "very poor peep' here, and very cold, too, sometime." By this time the door-way is entirely packed with little, black, shining heads, and curious faces, all shy, timid, and yet not the less good-natured. Just back of the cradle are two of the Acadian women, "knitters i' the sun," with features that might serve for Palmer's sculptures; and eyes so lustrous, and teeth so white, and cheeks so rich with brown and blush, that if one were a painter and not an invalid, he might pray for canvas and pallet as the very things most wanted in the critical moment of his life. Faed's picture does not convey the Acadian face. The mouth and chin are more delicate in the real than in the ideal Evangeline. If you look again, after the first surprise is over, you will see that these are the traditional pictures, such as we might have fancied they should be, after reading the idyl. From the foreheadof each you see at a glance how the dark mass of hair has been combed forward and over the face, that the little triangular Norman cap might be tied across the crown of the head. Then the hair is thrown back again over this, so as to form a large bow in front, then re-tied at the crown with colored ribbons. Then you see it has been plaited in a shining mesh, brought forward again, and braided with ribbons, so that it forms, as it were, a pretty coronet, well-placed above those brilliant eyes and harmonious features. This, with the antique kirtle and picturesque petticoat, is an Acadian portrait. Such is it now, and such it was, no doubt, when De Monts sailed from Havre de Grace, two centuries and a half ago. In visiting this kind and simple people, one can scarcely forget the little chapel. The young French priest was in his garden, behind the little tenement, set apart for him by the piety of his flock, and readily admitted us. A small place indeed was it, but clean and orderly, the altar decorated with toy images, that were not too large for a Christmas table. Yet I have been in the grandest tabernacles of episcopacy with lesser feelings of respect than those which were awakened in that tiny Acadian chapel. Peace be with it, and with its gentle flock.

"Pony is getting impatient," said my companion, as we reverently stepped from the door-way, "and it is a long ride to Halifax." So, with courteous salutation on both sides, we take leave of the good father, and once more are on the road to Deer's Castle.

A Romp at Three Fathom Harbor—The Moral Condition of the Acadians—The Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia—Mrs. Deer's Wit—No Fish—Picton—The Balaklava Schooner—And a Voyage to Louisburgh.

Pony is very enterprising. We are soon at the top of the first long hill, and look again, for the last time, upon the Acadian village. How cosily and quietly it is nestled down amid those graceful green slopes! What a bit of poetry it is in itself! Jog on, Pony!

The corporate authority of Three Fathom Harbor has been improving his time during our absence. As we drive up we find him in high romp with a brace of buxom, red-cheeked, Nova Scotia girls, who have just alighted from a wagon. The landlady of Three Fathom Harbor, in her matronly cap, is smiling over the little garden gate at her lord, who is pursuing his Daphnes, and catching, and kissing, and hugging, first one and then the other, to his heart's content. Notwithstanding theirscreams, and slaps, and robust struggles, it is very plain to be seen that the skipper's attentions are not very unwelcome. Leaving his fair friends, he catches Pony by the bridle and stops us with a hospitable—"Come in—you must come in; just a glass of ale, you'll want it;" and sure enough, we found when we came to taste the ale, that we did want it, and many thanks to him, the kind-hearted landlord of the Three Fathoms.

"It is surprising," said I to my companion, as we rolled again over the road, "that these people, these Acadians, should still preserve their language and customs, so near to your principal city, and yet with no more affiliation than if they were on an island in the South Seas!"

"The reason of that," he replied, "is because they stick to their own settlement; never see anything of the world except Halifax early in the morning; never marry out of their own set; never read—I do not believe one of them can read or write—and are in factso slow, so destitute of enterprise, so much behind the age"——

I could not avoid smiling. My companion observed it. "What are you thinking about?" said he.

The truth is, I was thinking of Halifax, which was anything but afastplace; but I simply observed:

"Your settlements here are somewhat novel to astranger. That a mere handful of men should be so near your city, and yet so isolated: that this village of a few hundred only, should retain its customs and language, intact, for generation after generation, within walking distance of Halifax, seems to me unaccountable. But let me ask you," I continued, "what is the moral condition of the Acadians?"

"As for that," said he, "I believe it stands pretty fair. I do not think an Acadian would cheat, lie, or steal; I know that the women are virtuous, and if I had a thousand pounds in my pocket I could sleep with confidence in any of their houses, although all the doors were unlocked and everybody in the village knew it."

"That," said I, "reminds one of the poem:

'Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows,But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their owners;There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.'"

Poor exiles! You will never see the Gasperau and the shore of the Basin of Minas, but if this very feeble life I have holds out, I hope to visit Grandpré and the broad meadows that gave a name to the village.

One thing Longfellow has certainly omitted in "Evangeline"—the wild flowers of Acadia. Theroadside is all fringed and tasselled with white, pink, and purple. The wild strawberries are in blossom, whitening the turf all the way from Halifax to Chezzetcook. You see their starry settlements thick in every bit of turf. These are the silver mines of poor Cuffee; he has the monopoly of the berry trade. It is his only revenue. Then in the swampy grounds there are long green needles in solitary groups, surmounted with snowy tufts; and here and there, clusters of light purple blossoms, called laurel flowers, but not like our laurels, spring up from the bases of grey rocks and boulders; sometimes a rich array of blood-red berries gleams out of a mass of greenery; then again great floral white radii, tipped with snowy petals, rise up profuse and lofty; down by the ditches hundreds of pitcher plants lift their veined and mottled vases, brimming with water, to the wood-birds who drink and perch upon their thick rims; May-flowers of delightful fragrance hide beneath those shining, tropical-looking leaves, and meadow-sweet, not less fragrant, but less beautiful, pours its tender aroma into the fresh air; here again we see the buckthorn in blossom; there, scattered on the turf, the scarlet partridge berry; then wild-cherry trees, mere shrubs only, in full bud; and around all and above all, the evergreens, the murmuring pines, and the hemlocks;the rampikes—the grey-beards of the primeval forest; the spicy breath of resinous balsams; the spiry tops, and the serene heaven. Is this fairy land? No, it is only poor, old, barren Nova Scotia, and yet I think Felix, Prince of Salerno, if he were here, might say, and say truly too, "In all my life I never beheld a more enchanting place;" but Felix, Prince of Salerno, must remember this is the month of June, and summer is not perpetual in the latitude of forty-five.

We reach at last Deer's Castle. Pony, under the hands of Bill, seems remarkably cheerful and fresh after his long travel up hill and down. When he pops out of his harness, with his knock-knees and sturdy, stocky little frame, he looks very like an animated saw-buck, clothed in seal-skin; and with a jump, and snort, and flourish of tail, he escorts Bill to the stable, as if twenty miles over a rough road was a trifle not worth consideration.

A savory odor of frying bacon and eggs stole forth from the door as we sat, in the calm summer air, upon the stone fence. William Deer, Jr., was wandering about in front of the castle, endeavoring to get control of his under lip and keep his exuberant mirth within the limits of decorum; but every instant, to use a military figure, it would flash in the pan. Up on the bare rocks were the wretched, woe-begone, patched, and ragged log huts of poor Cuffee. The hour and the season were suggestive of philosophizing, of theories, and questions.

"Mrs. Deer," said I, "is that your husband's portrait on the back of the sign?" (there was a picture of a stag with antlers on the reverse of the poetical swing-board, either intended as a pictographic pun upon the name of "Deer," or as a hint to sportsmen of good game hereabouts).

"Why," replied Mrs. Deer, an old tidy wench, of fifty, pretty well bent by rheumatism, and so square in the lower half of her figure, and so spare in the upper, that she appeared to have been carved out of her own hips: "why, as to dat, he ain't good-looking to brag on, but I don't think he looks quite like a beast neither."

At this unexpected retort, Bill flashed off so many pans at once that he seemed to be a platoon of militia. My companion also enjoyed it immensely. Being an invalid, I could not participate in the general mirth.

"Mrs. Deer," said I, "how long have you lived here?"

"Oh, sah! a good many years; I cum here afore I had Bill dar." (Here William flashed in the pan twice.)

"Where did you reside before you came to Nova Scotia?"

"Sah?"

"Where did you live?"

"Oh, sah! I is from Maryland." (William at it again.)

"Did you run away?"

"Yes, sah; I left when I was young. Bill, what you laughing at?Iwas young once."

"Were you married then—when you run away?"

"Oh yes, sah!" (a glance at Bill, who was off again).

"And left your husband behind in Maryland?"

"Yes, sah; but he didn't stay long dar after I left. He was after me putty sharp, soon as I travelled;" (here Mrs. Deer and William interchanged glances, and indulged freely in mirth).

"And which place do you like the best—this or Maryland?"

"Why, I never had no such work to do at home as I have to do here, grubbin' up old stumps and stones; dem isn't women's work. When I was home, I had only to wait on misses, and work was light and easy." (William quiet.)

"But which place do you like the best—Nova Scotia or Maryland?"

"Oh! de work here is awful, grubbin' up oldstones and stumps; 'tain't fit for women." (William much impressed with the cogency of this repetition.)

"But which place do you like the best?"

"And de winter here, oh! it's wonderful tryin." (William utters an affirmative flash.)

"But which place do you like the best?"

"And den dere's de rheumatiz."

"But which place do you like the best, Mrs. Deer?"

"Well," said Mrs. Deer, glancing at Bill, "I like Nova Scotia best." (Whatever visions of Maryland were gleaming in William's mind, seemed to be entirely quenched by this remark.)

"But why," said I, "do you prefer Nova Scotia to Maryland? Here you have to work so much harder, to suffer so much from the cold and the rheumatism, and get so little for it;" for I could not help looking over the green patch of stony grass that has been rescued by the labor of a quarter century.

"Oh!" replied Mrs. Deer, "de difference is, dat when I work here, I work for myself, and when I was working at home, I was working for other people." (At this, William broke forth again in such a series of platoon flashes, that we all joined in with infinite merriment.)

"Mrs. Deer," said I, recovering my gravity, "I want to ask you one more question."

"Well, sah," said the lady Deer, cocking her head on one side, expressive of being able to answer any number of questions in a twinkling.

"You have, no doubt, still many relatives left in Maryland?"

"Oh! yes," replied Mrs. Deer, "allof dem are dar."

"And suppose you had a chance to advise them in regard to this matter, would you tell them to run away, and take their part with you in Nova Scotia, or would you advise them to stay where they are?"

Mrs. Deer, at this, looked a long time at William, and William looked earnestly at his parent. Then she cocked her head on the other side, to take a new view of the question. Then she gathered up mouth and eyebrows, in a puzzle, and again broadened out upon Bill in an odd kind of smile; at last she doubled up one fist, put it against her cheek, glanced at Bill, and out came the answer: "Well, sah, I'd let 'em take dereownheads for dat!" I must confess the philosophy of this remark awakened in me a train of very grave reflections; but my companion burst into a most obstreperous laugh. As for Mrs. Deer, she shook her old hips as long as she could stand, and then sat down andcontinued, until she wiped the tears out of her eyes with the corner of her apron. William cast himself down upon a strawberry bank, and gave way to the most flagrant mirth, kicking up his old shoes in the air, and fairly wallowing in laughter and blossoms. I endeavored to change the subject. "Bill, did you catch any trout?" It was some time before William could control himself enough to say, "Not a single one, sah;" and then he rolled over on his back, put his black paws up to his eyes, and twitched and jingled to his heart's content. I did not ask Mrs. Deer any more questions; but there is a moral in the story, enough for a day.

As we rattled over the road, after our brief dinner at Deer's Castle, I could not avoid a pervading feeling of gloom and disappointment, in spite of the balmy air and pretty landscape. The old ragged abodes of wretchedness seemed to be too clearly defined—to stand out too intrusively against the bright blue sky. But why should I feel so much for Cuffee? Has he not enlisted in his behalf every philanthropist in England? Is he not within ten miles of either the British flag or Acadia? Does not the Duchess of Sutherland entertain the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the Black Swan? Why should I sorrow for Cuffee, when he is in the midst of his best friends? Why should I pretendto say that this appears to be the raggedest, the meanest, the worst condition of humanity, when the papers are constantly lauding British philanthropy, and holding it up as a great example, which we must "bow down and worship?" For my own part, although the pleasant fiction of seeing Cuffee clothed, educated, and Christianized, seemed to be somewhat obscured in this glimpse of his real condition, yet I hope he will do well under his new owners; at the very least, I trust his berry crop will be good, and that a benevolent British blanket or two may enable him to shiver out the winter safely, if not comfortably. Poor William Deer, Sen'r, of Deer's Castle, was suffering with rheumatism in the next apartment, while we were at his eggs and bacon in the banquet hall; but Deer of Deer's Castle is a prince to his neighbors. I shall not easily forget the brightening eye, the swift glance of intelligence in the face of another old negro, an hostler, in Nova Scotia. He was from Virginia, and adopting the sweet, mellifluous language of his own home, I asked him whether he liked best to stay where he was, or go back to "Old Virginny?" "O massa!" said he, withsucha look, "youmust knowdat I has de warmest side for my own country!"

We rattled soberly into Dartmouth, and took theferry-boat across the bay to the city. At the hotel there was no little questioning about Chezzetcook, for some of the Halifax merchants are at the Waverley. "Goedbless ye, what took ye to Chizzencook?" said one, "I never was there een in my life; ther's no bizz'ness ther, noathing to be seen: ai doant think there is a maen in Halifax scairsly, 'as ever seen the place."

At the supper-table, while we were discussing, over the cheese and ale, the Chezzetcook and negro settlements, and exhibiting with no little vainglory a gorgeous bunch of wild flowers (half of which vanity mycompagnon de voyageis accountable for), there was a young English-Irish gentleman, well built, well featured, well educated: by name—I shall call him Picton.

Picton took much interest in Deer's Castle and Chezzetcook, but slily and satirically. I do not think this the best way for a young man to begin with; but nevertheless, Picton managed so well to keep his sarcasms within the bounds of good humor, that before eleven o'clock we had become pretty well acquainted. At eleven o'clock the gas is turned off at Hotel Waverley. We went to bed, and renewed the acquaintance at breakfast. Picton had travelled overland from Montreal to take the "Canada" for Liverpool, and had arrived too late.Picton had nearly a fortnight before him in which to anticipate the next steamer. Picton was terribly bored with Halifax. Picton wanted to go somewhere—where?—"he did not care where." The consequence was a consultation upon the best disposal of a fortnight of waste time, a general survey of the maritime craft of Halifax, the selection of the schooner "Balaklava," bound for Sydney in ballast, and an understanding with the captain, that the old French town of Louisburgh was the point we wished to arrive at, into which harbor we expected to be put safely—three hundred and odd miles from Halifax, and this side of Sydney about sixty-two miles by sea. To all this did captain Capstan "seriously incline," and the result was, two berths in the "Balaklava," several cans of preserved meats and soups, a hamper of ale, two bottles of Scotch whisky, a ramshackle, Halifax van for the luggage, a general shaking of hands at departure, and another set of white sails among the many white sails in the blue harbor of Chebucto.

The "Balaklava" glimmered out of the harbor. Slowly and gently we swept past the islands and great ships; there on the shore is Point Pleasant in full uniform, its red soldiers and yellow tents in the thick of the pines and spruces; yonder is the admiralty, and the "Boscawen" seventy-four, thereceiving-ship, a French war-steamer, and merchantmen of all flags. Slowly and gently we swept out past the round fort and long barracks, past the lighthouse and beaches, out upon the tranquil ocean, with its ominous fog-banks on the skirts of the horizon; out upon the evening sea, with the summer air fanning our faces, and a large white Acadian moon, faintly defined overhead.

Picton was a traveller; anybody could see that he was a traveller, and if he had then been in any part of the habitable globe, in Scotland or Tartary, Peru or Pennsylvania, there would not have been the least doubt about the fact that he was a traveller travelling on his travels. He looked like a traveller, and was dressed like a traveller. He had a travelling-cap, a travelling-coat, a portable-desk, a life-preserver, a water-proof blanket, a travelling-shirt, a travelling green leather satchel strapped across his shoulder, a Minié-rifle, several trunks adorned with geographical railway labels of all colors and languages, cork-soled boots, a pocket-compass, and a hand-organ. As for the hand-organ, that was an accident in his outfit. The hand-organ was a present for a little boy on the other side of the ocean; but nevertheless, it played its part very pleasantly in the cabin of the "Balaklava." And now let me observe here, that when we left Halifax in the schooner, I was scarcely less feeble than when I left New York. I mention it to show how speedily "roughing it" on the salt water will bring one's stomach to its senses.

The "Balaklava" was a fore-and-aft schooner in ballast, and very little ballast at that; easily handled; painted black outside, and pink inside; as staunch a craft as ever shook sail; very obedient to the rudder; of some seventy or eighty tons burden; clean and neat everywhere, except in the cabin. As for her commander, he was a fine gentleman; true, honest, brave, modest, prudent and courteous. Sincerely polite, for if politeness be only kindness mixed with refinement, then Captain Capstan was polite, as we understand it. The mate of the schooner was a cannie Scot; by name, Robert, Fitzjames, Buchanan, Wallace, Burns, Bruce; and Bruce was as jolly a first-mate as ever sailed under the cross-bones of the British flag. The crew was composed of four Newfoundland sailor men; and the cook, whose h'eighth letter of the h'alphabet smacked somewhat strongly of H'albion. As for the rest, there was Mrs. Captain Capstan, Captain and Mrs. Captain Capstan's baby; Picton and myself. It is cruel to speak of a baby, except in terms of endearment and affection, and therefore I could not but condemn Picton, whowould sometimes, in his position as a traveller, allude to baby in language of most emphatic character. The fact is, Pictonsworeat that baby! Baby was in feeble health and would sometimes bewail its fate as if the cabin of the "Balaklava" were four times the size of baby's misfortunes. So Picton got to be very nervous and uncharitable, and slept on deck after the first night.

"How do you like this?" said Picton, as we leaned over the side of the "Balaklava," looking down at the millions of gelatinous quarls in the clear waters.

"Oh! very much; this lazy life will soon bring me up; how exhilarating the air is—how fresh and free!

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