And as our eyes turn to the lovely view of the Bay with its sheltering
highlands we can readily imagine how, on just such evenings as this, -
"apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's embrasure,
Sat the lovers, and whispered together, beholding the moon rise
Over the pallid sea,"
while
"Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossom the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels."
We do not ask if the lover's name is "Gabriel", but earnestly wish her
a happier lot than that of the sad heroine of Grand Pré's story.
The sun sinks behind the hills which bound lovely St. Mary's Bay, and
we plainly see the two curious openings known as the Grand Passage and
Petit Passage, through which the fishermen sail when conveying their
cargoes to St. John. The Petit Passage is one mile wide; and passing
through this deep strait the hardy fishermen can, in favorable weather,
cross to St John in eight to ten hours. These highlands across the Bay,
known as Digby Neck and Long Island, are a continuation of the range of
mountains terminating in Blomidon on the Minas Basin, and so singularly
cut away to make entrance to Annapolis Basin, at St. George's Channel,
vulgarly known as Digby Gut.
When De Monts and his party were ready to continue their cruise from
this sheltered haven, behold! one of their company - a priest - was
missing; and though they waited several days, making signals and firing
guns, such sounds were drowned by the roar of the surf, and never
reached the ears of the poor man lost in the woods. At last, supposing
that the wanderer had fallen a prey to wild animals, the explorers
sailed away, and, finding the entrance to Annapolis Basin, began to
make preparation for colonizing at Port Royal.
Sixteen days after the disappearance of the priest, some of De Monts'
men returning to this Bay to examine the minerals more thoroughly, were
attracted by a signal fluttering on the shore, and, hurrying to land,
there found the poor priest, emaciated and exhausted. What strange
sensations the distracted wanderer must have experienced in these forest
wilds, with starvation staring him in the face! No charms did he see
in this scene which now delights us; and doubtless, with Selkirk, would
have exclaimed, "Better dwell in the midst of alarms, than to live in
this beautiful place."
This strange wild coast and the Cod Banks of Newfoundland were known to
and visited by foreign fishermen at a very early date. "The Basques,
that primeval people, older than history," frequented these shores; and
it is supposed that such fisheries existed even before the voyage of
Cabot (1497). There is strong evidence of it in 1504; while in 1527
fourteen fishing vessels - Norman, Portuguese, and Breton - were seen at
one time in the Bay of Fundy, near the present site of St. John.
