ON CAPE BEETON. 



263 



harbour Laureutbec. In L'Escarbot's map we find St. Lorau given to a cape at the north 

 of Cape Breton, but this was done to give a place to probably one of Cartier's names, Cape 

 Lorraine.' We may assume that Laureutbec was simply an attempt to gallicise an 

 unknown Indian name whose sound to the ear naturally recalled the familiar title of the 

 great gulf and river of Canada. Loran - is only a corruption of the stately name of Lor- 

 raine, which was given it for years, when no one, after the occupation by the English, 

 could interpret the original word Lorembec, and there was a general tendency to fall 

 back on the French regime in such matters of perplexity. In all likelihood we see in the 

 strange and hitherto meaningless Lorembec a survival of an Algonquin word, which was 

 applied in some remote time of which we have no accurate knowledge to the ill-defined 

 region which was known as Norumbega or Norumbec, and even Arambec — though the 

 latter was generally given to Nova Scotia — and was believed by some mariners and geo- 

 graphers of ancient days to extend from Florida even to the eastern shores of Cape Breton. 

 The old French voyagers may have found the word on the coast of Cape Breton, and have 

 given it to the places where it lingered long until it became at last Loran. Thus we may 

 see in these obscure harbours of eastern Cape Breton a link to connect us with the past of 

 northeastern America — the land of shadows and mysteries, where the city of Norumbega 

 rose with palaces as substantial as those chateaux en Espagne of which all of us dream 

 in the buoyancy and enthusiasm of hopeful and early manhood.' 



The following verses on the Indian names of places in Acadie and Cape Breton, 

 written in a melodious rhythm by a Nova Scotiau poet,' will interest my readers in 

 connection with the subject to which we are now referring. 



" The memory of the Kod man 

 How can it pass away, 

 While their nauies of music linger 

 On each mount, and stream, and bay 

 While Musquodoboit'.s waters 

 Roll sparkling to the main ; 

 While falls the laughing sunbeam 

 On Che"ogin's fields of grain. 



" While Escasoni's fountains 

 I'our down their crystal tide ; 

 While Inganish's mountains 

 Lift high their forms of pride; 

 Or while on Mabou's river 

 The boatman plies his oar, 

 Or the billows burst in thunder 

 On Chickriben't rock-girt shore. 



' See A pp. VII to this work. 



'^ It is worth noting that at the mouth of the great Orinocco River there is an island named Loran. Perhaps 

 some may trace a connection between these names of Loran in North and South America and the voyages of the 

 early European voyagers to this continent. 



' See App. IV.to this work, where this interesting subject is still further discussed. Professor Eben N. Horsford, 

 of Cambridge, Mass.,— the enthusiastic exponent of the theory tliat the ruins of mysterious Norumbega underlie 

 Waterlown, in the basin of the Charles near Boston, — traces in the ancient word a dialectic equivalent of an old 

 Norse form of Norway which has survived on the lips of the eastern Indian tribes. Certainly even those who 

 differ from him must arife from the perusal of his elaborate essays, so rich in valuable maps and illustrations 

 with the feeling, " Si non é vero é ben trovato." " See " The Defences of Norumbega," pp. 20-2.5. 



* Mr. Lighthall in "Songs of tlie Great Dominion" (London, 1889), like some others, attributes this frequently 

 quoted poem to the late Professor De Mille, a Nova Seotian, author of " The Dodge Club Abroad " in ' Harper's 

 Monthly,' "The Cryptogram," and several other works of light literature. I had often heard it was written bv a 

 Mr. Richard Huntington, who was a journalist for a time at Sydney, C. B., and afterwards removed to Yarmouth 

 N. S., where he followed his profession, and published the verses in question. The Rev. J. R. Campbell, in his 

 " History of Yarmouth " (St. John, N. B., 1876) mentions this fact. 



