6o TRANSACTIONS. 1 897-8. 



One of the gates in the picturesque City of Quebec was 

 called the Hope gate, after one of the Hope family. The 

 French christened it Porte de V Esperance. 



Cap Faim, commemorative no doubt of an unpleasant 

 experiepLce of hunger by a band of early navigators, has, under 

 the phonetic spell of English sailors, been transformed into 

 Cape Fame. 



Sir James Le Moine tells how one Shepard built a villa 

 and called it Shepard ville, near the City of Quebec, and around 

 it in time clustered some habitants' houses. To the cluster 

 the French gave the name Bergerville, translating the English 

 word "shepherd" into the French vernacular, as was 

 natural. Subsequently, Irish settlers multiplied and with 

 characteristic insouciance they called the place Beggarsville. 

 Once again the French got the upper hand, and, with charac- 

 teristic politeness, translated the Irish name into " Village des 

 Queteux," not village des gueux — ^^the village of the alms- 

 takers, not the village of the beggars — a nice distinction. 



Cape Speer in Newfoundland was originally Cap-da-Es- 

 pera, Portuguese for Cape Hope. Nobody sees even a homeo- 

 pathic scintilla of hope in its present name. Cape Raz was 

 Portuguese for Flat Cape. Its present name, Cape Race, car- 

 ries with it no suggestion of flatness. Cape Ray comes from 

 the Basque word arraico meaning " approach," the point for 

 turning has been reached." It is Ray by corruption. It 

 woijld need a Roentgen Ray to uncover its original. 



Some place-names have a singular power of asserting 

 themselves against persistent efforts to change them ; thus. 

 Basin Minas was originally so called. It then became, in 

 Fr^ench, Basin Mines, but as there were no mines in the vic- 

 inity it has got back to its original Portuguese rendering, 

 Minas, " where there are springs." 



Bay of Fuudy was originally Baya Funda, Portuguese 

 for Deep Bay. The French called it La Bale Francaise. But 

 its original name clung to it in spite of the long French 

 occupation of Acadia. 



Imagination, a lively fancy, plays a not inconsiderable 

 part in the efforts to account for many place-names. Thus 

 one of the fanciful derivations of the word " Quebec " is " O ! 

 quel bee'''' ho-ely translated "O! what a beak," supposed to 

 have been uttered by the French sailors when they first saw 



