port the passengers over the rough and uninteresting nine miles to
Port Hawkesbury. Competition makes the fare low, but nothing makes the
ride entertaining. The only settlement passed through has the promising
name of River Inhabitants, but we could see little river and less
inhabitants; country and people seem to belong to that commonplace order
out of which the traveler can extract nothing amusing, instructive, or
disagreeable; and it was a great relief when we came over the last hill
and looked down upon the straggling village of Port Hawkesbury and the
winding Gut of Canso.

One cannot but feel a respect for this historical strait, on account
of the protection it once gave our British ancestors. Smollett makes
a certain Captain C----tell this anecdote of George II. and his
enlightened minister, the Duke of Newcastle: "In the beginning of the
war this poor, half-witted creature told me, in a great fright, that
thirty thousand French had marched from Acadie to Cape Breton. 'Where
did they find transports?' said I. 'Transports!' cried he; 'I tell you,
they marched by land.' By land to the island of Cape Breton?' 'What! is
Cape Breton an island?' 'Certainly.' 'Ha! are you sure of that?' When I
pointed it out on the map, he examined it earnestly with his spectacles;
then taking me in his arms, 'My dear C----!' cried he, you always bring
us good news. I'll go directly and tell the king that Cape Breton is an
island.'"

Port Hawkesbury is not a modern settlement, and its public house is
one of the irregular, old-fashioned, stuffy taverns, with low rooms,
chintz-covered lounges, and fat-cushioned rocking-chairs, the decay and
untidiness of which are not offensive to the traveler. It has a low
back porch looking towards the water and over a mouldy garden, damp and
unseemly. Time was, no doubt, before the rush of travel rubbed off the
bloom of its ancient hospitality and set a vigilant man at the door
of the dining-room to collect pay for meals, that this was an abode of
comfort and the resort of merry-making and frolicsome provincials. On
this now decaying porch no doubt lovers sat in the moonlight, and vowed
by the Gut of Canso to be fond of each other forever. The traveler
cannot help it if he comes upon the traces of such sentiment. There
lingered yet in the house an air of the hospitable old time; the swift
willingness of the waiting-maids at table, who were eager that we should
miss none of the home-made dishes, spoke