Acadia Part 12

So we went forth from the wigwam again on all fours, and it was only by another promise of a sound drubbing that Malcolm was finally persuaded to drop off and leave us.

Aboriginal certainly is the camp of the Micmacs. The birch-bark wigwams; the canoes that lined the beach; the paddles, the utensils; the bows and arrows; the parti-colored baskets, are independent of, are earlier than our arts and manufactures. So far as these people are concerned, the colonial government has been mild and considerate. Although there are game-laws in the Province, yet Micmac has a privilege no white man can possess. At all seasons he may hunt or fish; he may stick his _aishkun_ in the salmon as it runneth up the rivers to sp.a.w.n, and shoot the partridge on its nest, if he please, without fine and imprisonment. Some may think it better to preserve the game than to preserve the Indian; but some think otherwise. For my part, when the question is between the man and the salmon, I am content to forego fish.

As we walked through the Micmac camp we met our semi-civilized friend with the lozenge eyes, and I made a contract with him for a brief voyage on le Bras d'Or. But alas! Indian will sometimes take a lesson from his white comrades! Micmac's charge at first was one pound for a trip of twenty-four miles on the "Arm of Gold;" cheap enough. But before we left the camp it was two pounds. That I agreed to pay. Then there was a portage of three miles, over which the canoe had to be carried. "Well?" "And it would take two men to paddle." "Well?" "And then the canoe had to be paddled back."

"Well?" "And then carried over the portage again." "Well?" "And so it would be four pounds!" Here the negotiations were broken off; how much more it would cost I did not ascertain. The rate of progression was too rapid for further inquiry.

So we walked home again amid the fragrant resinous trees, until we gained the high road, and so by pretty cottages, and lawns, and picket fences; sometimes meeting groups of wandering damsels with their young and happy lovers; sometimes twos and threes of horse-women, in habits, hats, and feathers; now catching a glimpse of the broad, blue harbor; now looking down a green lane, bordered with turf and copse; until we reached our comfortable quarters at Mrs. Hearn's, where the pretty chambermaid, with drooping eyes, welcomed us in a voice whose music was sweeter than the tea-bell she held in her hand. And here, too, we found Malcolm, waiting for his pay, partially sober and quiet as a lamb.

I trust the reader will not find fault with the writer for dwelling upon these minute particulars. In this itinerary of the trip to the Acadian land, I have endeavored to portray, as faithfully as may be, the salient features of the country, and particularly those contrasts visible in the settlements; the jealous preservation of those dear, old, splendid prejudices, that separate tribe from tribe, clan from clan, sect from sect, race from race. I wish the reader to see and know the country as it is, not for the purpose of arousing his prejudices against a neighboring people, but rather with the intent of showing to what result these prejudices tend, in order that he may correct his own. A mere aggregation of tribes is not a great people. Take the human species in a state of sectionalism, and it does not make much difference whether it is in the shape of the Indian, proud of the blue and red stripes on his face, or the Scotchman, proud of the blue and red stripes on his plaid, the inferiority of the human animal, with his tribal sheep-mark on him, is evident enough to any person of enlarged understanding. Therefore I have been minute and faithful in describing the species McGibbet and Malcolm, and in contrasting them with the hardy fisherman of Louisburgh, the Micmacs of Sydney, the negroes of Deer's Castle, the Acadians of Chizzetcook, and as we shall see anon with other sectional specimens, just as they present their kaleidoscopic hues in the local settlements of this colony.

It is just a year since I was seated in that cosy inn-parlor at Sydney, and how strangely it all comes back again: the little window overlooking the harbor, the lights on the twinkling waters; the old-fas.h.i.+oned house-clock in the corner of the room; the bright bra.s.s andirons; the cut paper chimney-ap.r.o.n; the old sofa; the cheerful lamp, and the well-polished table. And I remember, too, the happy, tranquil feeling of lying in the snow-white sheets at night, and talking with Picton of our overland journey from Louisburgh; of McGibbet and Malcolm; and then we branched out on the great subject of Indian rights, and Indian wrongs; of squaws and pappooses; of wigwams and canoes, until at last I dropped off in a doze, and heard only a repet.i.tion of Micmac--Micmac--Micmac--Mic--Mac----Mic------Mac! To this day I am unable to say whether the sound I heard came from Picton, or the great house-clock in the corner.

CHAPTER X.

Over the Bay--A Gigantic Dumb Waiter--Erebus--Reflections--White and Black Squares of the Chess-board--Leave-taking--An Interruption--The Aibstract Preencipels of Feenance.

Bright and early next morning we arose for an expedition across the bay to North Sydney and the coal-mines. A fresh breakfast in a sunny room, a brisk walk to the breezy, gra.s.s-grown parapet, that defends the harbor; a thought of the first expedition to lay down the telegraph line between the old and new hemispheres, for here lie the coils of the sub-marine cable, as they were left after the stormy essay of the steamer "James Adger," a year before--what a theme for a poet!

"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some spark, now dormant, of electric fire: News, that the board of brokers might have swayed, Or broke the banks that trembled with the wire."

--and we take an airy seat on the p.o.o.p-deck of the little English steamer, and are wafted across the harbor, five miles, to a small sea-port, where coal-schutes and railways run out over the wharfs, and coasters, both fore-and-aft, and square-rigged, are gathered in profusion. A gla.s.s of English ale at a right salt-sea tavern, a bay horse, and two-wheeled "jumper" for the road, and away we roll towards the mines. Now up hill and down; now pa.s.sing another Micmac camp on the green margin of the beach; now by trim gardens without flowers; now getting nearer to the mines, which we know by the increasing blackness of the road; until at last we bowl past rows of one story dingy tenements of brick, with miners' wives and children cl.u.s.tered about them like funereal flowers; until we see the forges and jets of steam, and davits uplifted in the air; and hear the rattle of the iron trucks and the rush of the coal as it runs through the schutes into the rail-cars on the road beneath. We tie our pony beside a cinder-heap, and mount a ladder to the level of the huge platform above the shaft. A constant supply of small hand-cars come up with demoniac groans and shrieks from the bowels of the earth through the shaft. These are instantly seized by the laborers and run over an iron floor to the schute, where they are caught in t.i.tantic trammels, and overturned into harsh thunder. Meanwhile the demon car-bringer has sunk again on its errand; the suspending rope wheeling down with dizzy swiftness. As one car-bearer descends, another rises to the surface with its twin wheel-vessels of coal.

"Would you like to go down?"

"How far down?"

"Sixty fathoms."

Three hundred and sixty feet! Think of being suspended by a thread, from a height twice that of Trinity's spire, and whirled into such a depth by steam! We crawled into the little iron box, just large enough to allow us to sit up with our heads against the top, both ends of our parachute being open; the operator presses down a bar, and instantly the earth and sky disappear, and we are wrapt in utter darkness. Oh? how sickening is this sinking feeling! Down--down--down! What a gigantic dumb-waiter! Down, down, a hot gust of vapor--a stifling sensation--a concussion upon the iron floor at the foot of the shaft; a mult.i.tude of twinkling lamps, of fiends, of grimy faces, and no bodies--and we are in a coal-mine.

There was a black, bituminous seat for visitors, sculptured out of the coal, just beyond the shaft, and to this we were led by the carboniferous fiends. My heart beat violently. I do not know how it went with Picton, but we were both silent. Oh! for a glimpse of the blue sky and waving trees above us, and a long breath of fresh air!

As soon as the stifling sensation pa.s.sed away, we breathed more freely, and the lungs became accustomed to the subterranean atmosphere. In the gloom, we could see the s.m.u.tted features only, of miners moving about, and to heighten the Dantesque reality, new and strange sounds, from different parts of the enormous cavern, came pouring towards the common centre--the shaft of the coal-pit.

These were the laden cars on the tram-ways, drawn by invisible horses, from the distant works in the mine, rolling and reverberating through the infernal aisles of this devil's cathedral. One could scarcely help recalling the old grandfather of Maud's Lord-lover:

----"lately died, Gone to a _blacker pit_, for whom Grimy nakedness, dragging his trucks And laying his trams, _in a poisoned gloom_ Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine Master of half a servile s.h.i.+re, And left his coal all turned into gold To a grandson, first of his n.o.ble line."

Intermingled with these sounds were others, the jar and clash of gateways, the dripping and splas.h.i.+ng of water, the rolling thunder of the ascending and descending iron parachutes in the shaft, the trampling of horses, the distant report of powder-blasts, and the shrill jargon of human speakers, near, yet only partially visible.

"Is it a clear day overhead?" said the black bust of one of the miners, with a lamp in its _hat_!

Just think of it! We had only been divorced from the aerial blue of a June sky a minute before. Our very horse was so high above us that we could have distinguished him only by the aid of a telescope--that is, if the solid ribs of the globe were not between us and him.

As soon as we became accustomed to the place, we moved off after the foreman of the mine. We walked through the miry tram-ways under the low, black arches, now stepping aside to let an invisible horse and car, "grating harsh thunder," pa.s.s us in the murky darkness; now through a door-way, momently closed to keep the foul and clear airs separate, until we came to the great furnace of the mine that draws off all the noxious vapors from this nest of Beelzebub. Then we went to the stables where countless horses are stalled--horses that never see the light of day again, or if they do, are struck blind by the apparition; now in wider galleries, and new explorations, where we behold the busy miners, twinkling like the distant lights of a city, and hear the thunder-burst, as the blast explodes in the murky chasms. At last, tired, oppressed, and sickened with the vast and horrible prison, for such it seems, we retrace our steps, and once more enter the iron parachute. A touch of the magic lever, and again we fly away; but now upwards, upwards to the glorious blue sky and air of mother earth. A miner with his lamp accompanies us. By its dim light we see how rapidly we spin through the shaft. Our car clashes again at the top, and as we step forth into the clear suns.h.i.+ne, we thank G.o.d for such a bright and beautiful world up stairs!

"Do you know," said I, "Picton, what we would do if we had such a devil's pit as that in the States?"

"Well?" answered the traveller, interrogatively.

"We would make n.i.g.g.e.rs work it."

"I dare say," replied Picton, drily and satirically; "but, sir, I am proud to say that our government does not tolerate barbarity; to consign an inoffensive fellow-creature to such horrible labor, merely because he is black, is at variance with the well-known humanity of the whole British nation, sir."

"But those miners, Picton, were black as the devil himself."

"The miners," replied Picton, with impressive gravity, "are black, but not negroes."

"Nothing but mere white people, Picton?"

"Eh?" said the traveller.

"Only white people, and therefore we need not waste one grain of sympathy over a whole pit full of them."

"Why not?"

"Because they are not n.i.g.g.e.rs, what is the use of wasting sympathy upon a rat-hole full of white British subjects?"

"I tell you what it is," said Picton, "you are getting personal."

We were now rolling past the dingy tenements again. Squalid-looking, care-worn women, grimy children:

"To me there's something touching, I confess, In the grave look of early thoughtfulness, Seen often in some little childish face, Among the poor;"--

But these children's faces are not such. A child's face--G.o.d bless it!

should always have a little suns.h.i.+ne in its glance; but these are mere staring faces, without expression, that make you shudder and feel sad.

Miners by birth; human moles fitted to burrow in darkness for a life-time.

Is it worth living for? No wonder those swart laborers underground are so grim and taciturn: no wonder there was not a face lighted up by those smoky lamps in the pit, that had one line of human sympathy left in its rigidly engraved features!

But we must have coal, and we must have cotton. The whole plantations of the South barely supply the press with paper; and the messenger of intelligence, the steam-s.h.i.+p, but for coal could not perform its glorious mission. What is to be done, Picton? If every man is willing to give up his morning paper, wear a linen s.h.i.+rt, cross the ocean in a clipper-s.h.i.+p, and burn wood in an open fire-place, something might be done.

As Picton's steamer (probably fog-bound) had not yet arrived in Sydney, nor yet indeed the "Balaklava," the traveller determined to take a Newfoundland brigantine for St. John's, from which port there are vessels to all parts of the world. After leaving horse and jumper with the inn-keeper, we took a small boat to one of the many queer looking, high-p.o.o.ped crafts in the harbor, and very soon found ourselves in a tiny cabin, panelled with maple, in which the captain and some of the men were busy over a pan of savory _lobscouse_, a salt-sea dish of great reputation and flavor. Picton soon made his agreement with the captain for a four days' sail (or more) across to the neighboring province, and his luggage was to be on board the next morning. Once more we sailed over the bay of Sydney, and regained the pleasant shelter of our inn.

"Picton," said I, after a comfortable supper and a pensive segar, "we shall soon separate for our respective homes; but before we part, I wish to say to you how much I have enjoyed this brief acquaintance; perhaps we may never meet again, but I trust our short voyage together, will now and then be recalled by you, in whatever part of the world you may chance to be, as it certainly will by me."

The traveller replied by a hearty, earnest grasp of the hand; and then, after this formal leave-taking, we became suddenly estranged, as it were, sad, and silent, and shy; the familiar tone of conversation lost its key-note; Picton looked out of the inn window at the luminous moon-fog on the bay, and I buried my reflections in an antiquated pamphlet of "Household Words." We were soon interrupted by a stranger coming into the parlor, a chance visitor, another dry, preceese specimen of the land of oat-cakes.

After the usual salutations, the conversation floated easily on, upon indifferent topics, until Picton happened to allude, casually, to the general banking system of England. This was enough for a text. Our visitor immediately launched forth upon the subject, and gaed us a twa-hours discourse on the system of banking in Scotland; wherein the superiority of the method adopted by his countrymen, to wring the last drop of interest out a s.h.i.+lling, was pertinaciously and dogmatically argued, upon the great groundwork of "the general and aibstract preencepels of feenance!"

It was in vain that the traveller endeavored to silence him by a few flashes of sarcasm. He might as well have tried to silence a park of artillery with a handful of torpedoes! On and on, with the doggedness of a slow-hound, the Scot pursued the theme, until all other considerations were lost in the one sole idea.

But thus it is always, when you come in contact with people of "aibstract preencepels." All sweet and tender impulses, all generous and n.o.ble suggestions, all light and shade, all warmth and color, must give place to these dry husks of reason.

"Confound the Scotch interloper," said Picton, after our visitor had retired, "what business had he to impose upon our good nature, with his threadbare 'aibstract preencepels?' Confound him and his beggarly high cheek-bones, and his Caledonian pock-pits. I am sorry that I ever came to this part of the world; it has ruined a taste which I had acquired, with much labor, for Scottish poetry; and I shall never see 'Burns's Works'

again without a sickening shudder."