262 J. G. BOUEINOT 



built on the lake, but actually called after it, Labrador, — another proof of the general 

 acceptance of the name. It is just possible that among the early settlers in this part of 

 the island there were some French settlers from Bradore bay on the bleak northeastern 

 coast of the Grulf and that in this way the name was first given to this beautiful lake 

 which, in later times, so impressed its visitors that they changed it to the more poetic 

 appellation which it now bears with general approval. 



If Bras d'Or is but a modern phrase, it is not the only example we have of the tend- 

 ency to give a French vin-siou to names, the original meaning of which has been lost in 

 the lapse of centuries. We see this illustrated in the name of the little bay of Mainadieu, 

 to the westward of the dangerous isle of Scatari, to which was also sometimes given the 

 name of Little Cape Breton. To the southeast of this bay is that cape from which the 

 large island itself has in the course of years been called. Nearly all the French maps 

 describe it as Menadou — and Charlevoix gives us fora variation Panadou — in all prob- 

 ability an Indian name like Pictou ' in Nova Scotia or Mabou in Cape Breton, or Cibou," 

 which was the Micmac name of either St. Anne's or Sydney harbour, if not of both. It 

 w^as obviously easy to coin Mainadieu out of the old Indian word, so akin to it in sound, 

 and to suppose that it was once given by some storm-tossed sailor who believed that he 

 saw the hand of God stretched forth to guide him into this little haven of refuge on the 

 rough Cape Breton coast. Nigh by are two little harbours on whose encircling hills fish- 

 ermen have dwelt from the earliest days of which we hive any records, and whose names 

 appear frequently in the accounts of the two sieges of Louisbourg, especially in that of 

 175*, since it was at one of these ports that Wolfe established a depot for the support of 

 his batteries on Lighthouse Point. Some years ago a woman of the neighbourhood, while 

 passing a little hillock, accidentally discovered a small jar which had been hidden for a 

 century and a quarter or more, until the rains and snows had worn away the earth and 

 brought it to light. As she lifted it carelessly a little stream of gold coin poured forth — 

 louis d'or from the mint of the days of Louis Quinze, whose head was imprinted on the 

 metal. In all probability, in a hurried flight to Louisbourg, when the English came on 

 the coast in 1758, the treasure was buried and never reclaimed by the owner who met 

 his death behind the walls of the old town. The place where these coins were found is 

 now known as Little Loran in distinction from G-reat or Big Loran, the port nearest to 

 Louisbourg, where Wolfe made his post. Some contend that the name is only a corrup- 

 tion of Lorraine, but uowhere in any writing or map is there authority for such an hypo- 

 thesis. Billan, Pichon and others give us Lorembec, which naturally recalls Malpoc, 

 Kennebec, Cascumpec, Norembeque or Norembec, and other Indian names of old times of 

 Acadie and the countries on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In the Micmac tongue b(k or bee is 

 a familiar termination to the names of places, and one or two French writers have called this 



' Sir W. Dawson is authority for the statement (Trans, of Can. Soc. of MIn. Eng., 1878, Montreal, p. 35) " that 

 the name Pictou orijiinated witli tlie old Micmacs because of the gaseous emanations which were continually tak- 

 ing place on the outcrops of the coal seams." 



^ Grand Cibou is the old Micmac name generally given to St. Anne's (Brown's History, 77), but it appears 

 from the narrative of Mr. Charles Leigh, who visited Cape Breton in 1597, he entered a harbour called by the 

 natives " Cibou," which, from his description, is clearly Sydney. (See Hakluyt, Goldsmid's éd., xiii. 69.) It is 

 quite obvious that the early voyagers found the Micmac name of river, seeboo, applied indiflerently to such fine 

 harbours as St. Anne and Sydney. We meet with the same name on the western coast of Acadie, in the beauti- 

 ful river of Sissibou. (See infra, third page, note.) Brown does not appear to have studied the Indian names. 



