ON CAPE BEBTON. 257 



" promoutory standing, as it were, between the three provinces, and happily situated for 

 communication with the several parts of all the three, besides being the most safe and 

 easy land for ships to make coming from Europe." ' 



IX. Some Picturesque Features of Cape Breton and Memorials of the French 



RÉGIME. 



Leaving the subject of the varied resources of Cape Breton to the statist, let us now 

 turn to the picturesque aspect of the island, and to the memorials which still remain of 

 that old regime, whose history has been briefly written in these pages. From summer to 

 summer for many years the writer has visited this island endeared to him by the associa- 

 tions and memories of his boyhood, and always interesting for the fresh beauties revealed 

 on its grand coast, its beautiful rivers and its spacious bays, and for the opportunity it 

 gives of drawing the visitor from the prosaic present, with its cares and selfishness, to the 

 contemplation of other days when men and heroes fought and struggled for the supremacy 

 of two great nations on its storm-beaten shores. We find, still lingering on the bays and 

 harbours, the old names which existed in the middle of last century, when M. Pichon, 

 that discontented Frenchman visited the same places, and left us a description of their 

 natural features which in some respects is as true of these days as of his own time. He 

 Madame, Baleine and St. Esprit, are still familiar names of the French rule. But Micmac, 

 Portuguese, Spaniard, and Frenchman have in their turn left memorials of their presence 

 indelibly imprinted on the bays, rivers and headlands of this ancient island, — ancient 

 confessedly in American geography. The manner or the time of their baptism is now 

 buried in obscurity or absolute darkness, as I showed in the commencement of this paper, 

 and in many cases it is impossible to tell their exact meaning, and especially is this true of 

 the Indian or Micmac words. 



Standing on one of the bleak hills which overlook the Strait between Nova Scotia 

 and Cape Breton we recall its history since the days the Sieur de Fronsac was strug- 

 gling against the jealousies of rival traders and attempting to establish a seigneurie 

 for himself in its vicinity. His name, which for a while was given to this arm of the 

 sea, long ago disappeared from the memory of all except the historic student, and 

 the old title, whatever its meaning, clings persistently to these picturesque shores. 

 From time to time the graceful fishing vessels of New England glide over its waters, with 

 their white canvas and trim hulls, the envy and admiration of all sailors — so amazingly 

 in contrast with the clumsy hulks of the Basque vessels of St. Jean de Luz which, three 

 centirries ago and more, frequented these coasts.- The derivation of the name is now a 

 matter of conjecture. In the old maps and charts it is spelt Campseau or Canseau, and 

 the present method is an English corruption of the original name. One writer will have 

 that it is derived from the Spanish Granso, and has reference to the great flocks of wild 

 geese which fly over the Strait at certain periods of the year, and which naturally attracted 



' See " Can. Archives," (18S4) liii, for full text of these " Observations." 



- L'Escarbot writes (" Hist, de la Nouvelle France," ii. 570) of an olil Basque captain of St. .Jean de Luz, one 

 Savalet, who had frequented the eastern ports of Nova Scotia for 42 years before the author saw liini in 1605, and 

 whose name was given by the early French voyageurs to a little liarbour a short distance from Canseau, probably 

 Whitehaven. See Abbé Laverdière in a note on this latter point in his edition of Champlain's works, ii. 277. 



Sec. II, 1891. 33. 



