on the road to windsor—the great nova scotia railway—a fellow passenger—cape sable shipwrecks—seals—ponies—windsor—sam slick—a lively example.
a dewy, spring-like morning is all i remembered of my farewell to halifax. a very sweet and odorous air as i rode towards the railway station in the funereal cab; a morning without fog, a sparkling freshness that twinkled in the leaves and crisped the waters.
so i take leave of thee, quaint old city of chebucto. the words of a familiar ditty, the memory of the unfortunate miss bailey, rises upon me as the morning bugle sounds—
"a captain bold in halifax, who lived in country quarters,
seduced a maid, who hung herself next morning in her garters;
his wicked conscience smoted him, he lost his spirits daily,
he took to drinking ratifia, and thought upon miss bailey."
while the psychological features of the case[pg 280] were puzzling his brain and keeping him wide awake—
"the candles blue, at xii. o'clock, began to burn quite paley,
a ghost appeared at his bedside, and said—
behold, miss bailey!!!"
even such a sprite, so dead in look, so woe-begone, drew priam's curtain in the dead of night to tell him half his troy was burned; but this visit was for a different purpose, as we find by the words which the gallant lothario addressed to his victim:
"'you'll find,' says he, 'a five-pound note in my regimental small-clothes;
't will bribe the sexton for your grave,' the ghost then vanished gaily,
saying, 'god bless you, wicked captain smith, although you've ruined miss bailey.'"
there is no end to these legends; the whole province is full of them. the province building is stuffed with rich historical manuscripts, that only wait for the antiquarian explorer.[g]
[pg 281]but now we approach the station of the great nova scotia railway, nine and three-quarter miles in length, that skirts the margin of bed[pg 282]ford basin, and ends at the head of that blue sheet of water in the village of sackville. it is amusing to see the gravity and importance of the conductor, in uniform frock-coat and with crown and v. r. buttons, as he paces up and down[pg 283] the platform before starting; and the quiet dignity of the sixpenny ticket-office; and the busy air of the freight-master, checking off boxes and bundles for the distant terminus—so distant that it can barely be distinguished by the naked eye. but it was a pleasant ride, that by the basin! not less pleasant because of the company of an old friend, who, with wife and children, went with me to the end of the iron road. arrived there, we parted, with many a hearty hand-shake, and thence by stage to windsor, on the river avon, forty-five miles or so west of halifax.
my fellow-passenger on the stage-top was a pony! yes, a real pony! not bigger, however, than a good sized pointer dog, although his head was of most preposterous horse-like length. this equine tom thumb, was one of the mustangs, or wild horses of sable island, some little account of which here may not be uninteresting. but first let me say, in order not to tax the credulity of my reader too much, that pony did not stand upright upon the roof of the coach, as may have been surmised, but was very cleverly laid upon his side, with his four legs strapped in the form of a saw-buck, precisely as butchers tie the legs of calves or of sheep together, for transportation in carts to the shambles, only pony's fetters were not so cruel—indeed he seemed[pg 284] to be quite at his ease—like the member of the foreign legion on the road to dartmouth.
now then, pony's birth-place is one of the most interesting upon our coast. do you remember it, my transatlantic traveller? the little yellow spot that greets you so far out at sea, and bids you welcome to the western hemisphere? i hope you have seen it in fine weather; many a goodly ship has left her bones upon that yellow island in less auspicious seasons. the first of these misadventurers was sir humphrey gilbert, who was lost in a storm close by; the memorable words with which he hailed his consort are now familiar to every reader: "heaven," said he, "is as near by sea as by land," and so bade the world farewell in the tempest. legends of wrecks of buccaneers, of spectres, multiply as we penetrate into the mysterious history of the yellow island. and its present aspect is sufficiently tempting to the adventurous, for whom—
"if danger other charms have none,
then danger's self is lure alone."
the following description, from a lecture delivered in halifax, by dr. j. bernard gilpin, will commend itself to our modern robinson crusoes:[pg 285]
"should any one be visiting the island now, he might see, about ten miles' distance, looking seaward, half a dozen low, dark hummocks on the horizon. as he approaches, they gradually resolve themselves into hills fringed by breakers, and by and by the white sea beach with its continued surf—the sand-hills, part naked, part waving in grass of the deepest green, unfold themselves—a house and a barn dot the western extremity—here and there along the wild beach lie the ribs of unlucky traders half-buried in the shifting sand. by this time a red ensign is waving at its peak, and from a tall flag-staff and crow's nest erected upon the highest hill midway of the island, an answering flag is waving to the wind. before the anchor is let go, and the cutter is rounding to in five fathoms of water, men and horses begin to dot the beach, a life-boat is drawn rapidly on a boat-cart to the beach, manned, and fairly breasting the breakers upon the bar. it may have been three long winter months that this boat's crew have had no tidings of the world, or they may have three hundred emigrants and wrecked crews, waiting to be carried off. the hurried greetings over, news told and newspapers and letters given, the visitor prepares to return with them to the island. should it be evening, he will see the cutter already under weigh[pg 286] and standing seaward; but, should it be fine weather, plenty of day, and wind right off the shore, even then she lies to the wind anchor apeak, and mainsail hoisted, ready to run at a moment's notice, so sudden are the shifts of wind, and so hard to claw off from those treacherous shores. but the life-boat is now entering the perpetual fringe of surf—a few seals tumble and play in the broken waters, and the stranger draws his breath hard, as the crew bend to their oars, the helmsman standing high in the pointed stern, with loud command and powerful arm keeping her true, the great boat goes riding on the back of a huge wave, and is carried high up on the beach in a mass of struggling water. to spring from their seats into the water, and hold hard the boat, now on the point of being swept back by the receding wave, is the work of an instant. another moment they are left high and dry on the beach, another, and the returning wave and a vigorous run of the crew has borne her out of all harm's way.
"such is the ceremony of landing at sable island nine or ten months out of the year: though there are at times some sweet halcyon days when a lad might land in a flat. dry-shod the visitor picks his way between the thoroughly drenched crew, picks up a huge scallop or two, admires the[pg 287] tumbling play of the round-headed seals, and plods his way through the deep sand of an opening between the hills, or gulch (so called) to the head-quarters establishment. and here, for the last fifty years, a kind welcome has awaited all, be they voluntary idlers or sea-wrecked men. screened by the sand-hills, here is a well-stocked barn and barnyard, filled with its ordinary inhabitants, sleek milch cows and heady bulls, lazy swine, a horse grazing at a tether, with geese and ducks and fowls around. two or three large stores and boat-houses, quarters for the men, the superintendent's house, blacksmith shop, sailors' home for sea-wrecked men, and oil-house, stand around an irregular square, and surmounted by the tall flag-staff and crow's nest on the neighboring hill. so abrupt the contrast, so snug the scene, if the roar of the ocean were out of his ears, one might fancy himself twenty miles inland.
"nearly the first thing the visitor does is to mount the flag-staff, and climbing into the crow's nest, scan the scene. the ocean bounds him everywhere. spread east and west, he views the narrow island in form of a bow, as if the great atlantic waves had bent it around, nowhere much above a mile wide, twenty-six miles long, including[pg 288] the dry bars, and holding a shallow late thirteen miles long in its centre.
"there it all lies spread like a map at his feet—grassy hill and sandy valley fading away into the distance. on the foreground the outpost men galloping their rough ponies into head-quarters, recalled by the flag flying above his head; the west-end house of refuge, with bread and matches, firewood and kettle, and directions to find water, and head-quarters with flag-staff on the adjoining hill. every sandy peak or grassy knoll with a dead man's name or old ship's tradition—baker's hill, trott's cove, scotchman's head, french gardens—traditionary spot where the poor convicts expiated their social crimes—the little burial-ground nestling in the long grass of a high hill, and consecrated to the repose of many a sea-tossed limb; and two or three miles down the shallow lake, the south-side house and barn, and staff and boats lying on the lake beside the door. nine miles further down, by the help of a glass, he may view the flag-staff at the foot of the lake, and five miles further the east-end look-out, with its staff and watch-house. herds of wild ponies dot the hills, and black duck and sheldrakes are heading their young broods on the mirror-like ponds. seals[pg 289] innumerable are basking on the warm sands, or piled like ledges of rock along the shores. the glascow's bow, the maskonemet's stern, the east boston's hulk, and the grinning ribs of the well-fastened guide are spotting the sands, each with its tale of last adventure, hardships passed, and toil endured. the whole picture is set in a silver-frosted frame of rolling surf and sea-ribbed sand."
the patrol duty of the hardy islander is thus described:
"mounted upon his hardy pony, the solitary patrol starts upon his lonely way. he rides up the centre valleys, ever and anon mounting a grassy hill to look seaward, reaches the west-end bar, speculates upon perchance a broken spar, an empty bottle, or a cask of beef struggling in the land-wash—now fords the shallow lake, looking well for his land-range, to escape the hole where baker was drowned; and coming on the breeding-ground of the countless birds, his pony's hoof with a reckless smash goes crunching through a dozen eggs or callow young. he fairly puts his pony to her mettle to escape the cloud of angry birds which, arising in countless numbers, dent his weather-beaten tarpaulin with their sharp bills, and snap[pg 290] his pony's ears, and confuse him with their sharp, shrill cries. ten minutes more, and he is holding hard to count the seals. there they lie, old ocean flocks, resting their wave-tossed limbs—great ocean bulls, and cows, and calves. he marks them all. the wary old male turns his broad moustached nostrils to the tainted gale of man and horse sweeping down upon them, and the whole herd are simultaneously lumbering a retreat. and now he goes, plying his little short whip, charging the whole herd to cut off their retreat for the pleasure and fun of galloping in and over and amongst fifty great bodies, rolling and tumbling and tossing, and splashing the surf in their awkward endeavors to escape."
and now to return to our pony, who seems to sympathize with his fellow-traveller, for every instant he raises his head as if he would peep into his note-book. let me quote this of him and of his brethren:
"when the present breed of wild ponies was introduced, there is no record. in an old print, seemingly a hundred years old, they are depicted as being lassoed by men in cocked hats and antique habiliments. at present, three or four hundred are[pg 291] their utmost numbers, and it is curious to observe how in their figures and habits they approach the wild races of mexico or the ukraine. they are divided into herds or gangs, each having a separate pasture, and each presided over by an old male, conspicuous by the length of his mane, rolling in tangled masses over eye and ear down to his fore arm. half his time seems taken up in tossing it from his eyes as he collects his out-lying mares and foals on the approach of strangers, and keeping them well up in a pack boldly faces the enemy whilst they retreat at a gallop. if pressed, however, he, too, retreats on their rear. he brooks no undivided allegiance, and many a fierce battle is waged by the contending chieftains for the honor of the herd. in form they resemble the wild horses of all lands: the large head, thick, shaggy neck of the male, low withers, paddling gait, and sloping quarters, have all their counterparts in the mustang and the horse of the ukraine. there seems a remarkable tendency in these horses to assume the isabella colors, the light chestnuts, and even the piebalds or paint horses of the indian prairies or the mexican savannah. the annual drive or herding, usually resulting in the whole island being swept from end to end, and a kicking, snorting, half-terrified mass driven into a large[pg 292] pound, from which two or three dozen are selected, lassoed, and exported to town, affords fine sport, wild riding, and plenty of falls."
thus much for sable island.
"dark isle of mourning! aptly art thou named,
for thou hast been the cause of many a tear;
for deeds of treacherous strife too justly famed,
the atlantic's charnel—desolate and drear;
a thing none love, though wand'ring thousands fear—
if for a moment rest the muse's wing
where through the waves thy sandy wastes appear,
'tis that she may one strain of horror sing,
wild as the dashing waves that tempests o'er thee fling."[h]
and now pony we must part. windsor approaches! yonder among the embowering trees is the residence of judge halliburton, the author of "sam slick." how i admire him for his hearty hostility to republican institutions! it is natural, straightforward, shrewd, and, no doubt, sincere. at the same time, it affords an example of how much the colonist or satellite form of government tends to limit the scope of the mind, which under happier skies and in a wider intelligence might have shone to advantage.
