ON CAPE BEETON. 281 



varied flora of this uorthuru region bloom amid the crevices or ou the swampy ground 

 which is a prevalent feature of the country. The beach is one great collection of rocky 

 debris which seems to have been thrown up by some giant effort of nature, and it requires 

 no slight effort to find one's way amid these masses of rock ]3iled on rock, worn smooth as 

 marble, by the unceasing action of the waves, and covered at their base with great bunches 

 of entangled seaweed and shells which glisten like so many necklets of amber beneath 

 the sunlight as it ^leers into the little pools that have been left by the tide when it has 

 receded to the bosom of mother-ocean. Some few paces eastward of the lighthouse, a mound 

 or two of turf represents the battery which in "Wolfe's time did so much execution on the 

 works at Groat Island, which is about a third of a mile distant in a southerly direction, — 

 a mass of rock and earth, where old cannon balls and pieces of artillery are now and then 

 turned up by the waves as they roll during the equinoctial gales on its rugged shores. On 

 these islands that guard the port seabirds without number still build their nests, and at 

 certain seasons of the year, when the visitor lands among the rocks, they rise by myriads 

 into the sky and hover like a great cloud above the islets. The lighthouse, a tall wooden 

 building with a fixed light, stands securely on a pinnacle of rock, — a dreary home in the 

 storms of autumn and winter, and the fogs of spring. A dark grey tower of stone would 

 better harmonize with the dull colours of sky and ocean that generally jirevail in this 

 sad country than the white structure from which the signal is flashed to the passing 

 ship. More than a century and a half has passed away since the French built the first 

 lighthouse on the same spot, and with the exception of a year or so when the lantern was 

 destroyed by fire a light has burned unremittingly among the rocks of this prominent 

 point of Cape Breton.' From here sometimes — but rarely at this point however — in early 

 spring one can see the vast fields of ice, stretching as far as the eye can see, blockading all 

 approaches to the port as in the days when Pepperrell's little expedition lay anchored at 

 Canseau. But the westerly winds soon scatter these ice-floes, and send them to melt in 

 the warm current of the gulf stream, and the keeper from his lantern tower looks once 

 more on the wide expanse of ocean, with all its varied moods in that iincertain region 

 where storm and sunshine are ever fighting for the mastery. A short distance from the 

 lighthouse there is a white modern cottage, a pleasant summer home, whose green lawn 

 slopes to the edge of a little pond guarded from the encroachments of the ocean by a 

 causeway of stone. Here is a vista of laud and sea of rare" attraction for the wearied 

 resident of the town, — solitude and historic memories, the sea in all its grandeur, — no one 

 can ask more in the summer days. 



Following the sinuosities of the harbour we come to where once stood the careening 

 wharf of the French, and here, when the writer last saw the place, was a high and long 

 pier for loading vessels with the coal brought some twelve miles from the mines by a 

 narrow "'uao-e railway. In this neighbourhood when the railway was built there was to 

 be a new town of Louisbourg and a large coal business was to be prosecuted in summer 

 and winter, but the pier has fallen into decay — it is probably removed by this time — 

 the railway has been derailed in places, the wooden trestle work over Catalogne Lake has 

 rotted away, and Louisbourg has again been deserted for the town of Sydney. The road 



' I find the following notes by M. Marniette in the "Canadian Archives," (1887, cccxv, cccxxi, cccxxiii): — 

 " The lighthouse lantern was kindled on tlie tirst cf April (1734). It was perfectly visible for six leagues out to sea 

 * * Nov. 10, 1736. The lantern of the hghthouse has been burned, and they have to rebuild it * * Oct. 30, 

 1737. RebuildiBg of the lighthouse." 



Sec. II, 1S91. 3fj. 



