[8. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 229 



" La Chasse aux Outardes, aux Oyes sauvages, aux Perdris do 

 " Franco, aux Gelinotes de bois, aux Tourterelles, aux Canardes, aux 

 '* Pluviers, aux Sarcelles, aux Eeccassines, & a toute sorte de Gibier de 

 ^' riviere y régne de toutes parts. Je ne parle point de la Pelleterie du 

 " Canada, qui n'y manque point. 



" L'on n'auroit pas si loin à aller pour faire la pêche de la morue 

 " comme à Plaisance, et l'on n'y courroit point le même risque, d'autant 

 *' qu'elle s'y fait presque terre à terre tout le long de l'isle." (Hist, de 

 l'Amérique Septentrionale par Bacqueville de La Potherie, vol. 1, p. 20. 

 Paris, nSS.) 



The following is from Haliburton's " History of Nova Scotia" : 



"Although the soil of ihe island has hitherto (1833) been worked by 

 '' ill-instructed and careless cultivators, who, possessing abundance of 

 *' land, take little pains to make it productive, yet the discovery has 

 " already been made that in fertility it is superior to any of the uplands 

 " of Nova Scotia." (Yol. 2, p. 258.) 



"A line of coast extends from the great Bras d'Or, in a southeast 

 *' direction, as far as Cow bay, about thirty miles, which may be denomi- 

 " nated the coal coast, nearly the whole range being faced with perpen- 

 " dicular cliffs, streaked with veins of coal. The country on the summit 

 " of these cliffs is level, but becomes undulating in the interior. The land 

 " is well adapted for cultivation, and in the unsettled parts is clothed 

 *' with timber of good size, except near the margin of the cliffs, where it 

 " is usually overspread with stunted spruce and other fir trees, all inclin- 

 *' ing landwards from the fury of the Atlantic storms, flattened at the 

 ^' top into the semblance of so many umbrellas. In the cultivated parts, 

 " however, the coast wears a very dissimilar aspect, the summits of the 

 " cliffs being arrayed in a green sward, gently rising as it extends back- 

 " wards to the forest, which shows in the distance a wall of majestic 

 " trees, generally beech, birch or maple." (Vol. 1', p. 204.) 



Speaking of Sydney, Haliburton says : " The surrounding land is a 

 " fine agricultural tract." Between Sydney and Lingan " the soil is fer- 

 " tile and well timbered both near the shores and in the interior." Still 

 continuing south, Haliburton says (p. 211) of Salmon river: "The waters 

 " gush through a narrow channel, fourteen miles further, into the beauti- 

 " ful Miré bay, a crescent of fair sandy beach, well wooded and com- 

 ^' manding a noble prospect of the ocean." 



Then follows, only five miles away, the point of Cape Breton and 

 Scatari island. The soil from thence southwards is poor, beyond Louis- 

 bourg and along the coast, until it turns west at the Lennox passage. 

 Cape Breton itself is the lowest part of the coast, and both it and Scatari 

 island are exposed to the full sweep of the Atlantic. The coast there is 

 rocky, and the rock is hard, being the terminal point of the hard Cam- 

 brian rock which skirts the coast of Nova îr'cotia. Haliburton says that 

 the cape of Cape Breton is " better known to the mariners of the coast 

 *' by the name of Port Novy Land, from the small adjacent island of 

 " Puerto Nuevo." This little islet is on the charts as Port Nova,'-' and 

 the name is a survival of the earliest times of Portuguese voyages along 

 the coast. 



I have preferred to make quotations from these older writers, 

 because in 1725 and 1833 the coast was less changed, and both Father 

 Charlevoix and Judge Haliburton have been long gathered to their 

 fathers, and are beyond the reach of adjectives or other rhetorical mis- 



