On the south-west coast of France, near Bayonne, is a Cape Breton, from whence hailed the sixteenth century sailor who first descried the headland here to which he gave that name, probably the oldest in North American geography. When the name of this cape became extended to the whole island is unknown, and as may be guessed from the Duke of Newcastle’s remark, many were ignorant of its wider application even in the eighteenth century.

“The English ministry,” wrote Haliburton, “in the time of Mr. Pitt was said to have considered the island worse than useless, and would have rejoiced that Cape Breton had sunk to the depths of the ocean, being continually apprehensive that other Powers might obtain possession and thus establish a post of annoyance, which motive caused the destruction of the fortifications.” Utterly neglected, therefore, for a long period after it had passed into our possession, it remained a useless appanage to Nova Scotia until a separate government was established at Sydney, and by the enterprise of Lieutenant-Governor Des Barres, Cape Breton began to increase and multiply, and only received a temporary set-back when it was re-annexed to Nova Scotia in 1820. That event, of course, lost the island the coal-mining and excise revenues, and its fees on Crown lands, as well as the salaries of officials spent on the island; and it naturally took some considerable time to recover from these effects, especially as for thirty years the income had been outlaid upon much needed roads and bridges.

Cape Breton was long considered strategically the key to Canada. Now, however, that ships of large burden can and do pass by preference through the Straits of Belle Isle, it can no longer be said to command even the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The island is separated from the mainland by the Strait of Canso. At Port Mulgrave a beautiful marine view opened up before me, as the Intercolonial railway train began to transfer its whole huge bulk on board the waiting ferry boat. The distant cliffs and fishing hamlets were bathed in sunlight, the blue waters were alive with multi-coloured anemones; sails of smacks and schooners darted hither and thither along the surface; there was a hurrying to and fro of tourists and fishermen on the green-clad shores; the whole scene was one of picturesque animation. One noted on the mainland the lofty Cape Porcupine, from whose summit, before submarine cables were sunk, the telegraph wires were crossed high in mid-air over the Strait to Plaister Cove. This stretch of wire was then part of the link connecting Europe and North America, and when it broke, as, of course, it frequently did, communication was suspended between the Old World and the New. I am told that a pleasing juvenile pastime of the fishermen’s children in former times was aiming stones at the wire, probably occasioning from time to time a rude interruption of the speech between two hemispheres.