Gorgeously ornamented cakes, or
curious implements for games, totally unknown to us moderns! Our host
has a pleasant greeting for all, and receives cordial reply, and
sometimes merry jest and repartee from the happy revelers.
Much to our delight, our route to the station passes the grounds where
the fête is held; and here we see booths of boughs, a revolving swing
(which they call a "galance"), fluttering flags, and gay banners.
Merry groups of young people are engaged in games or dances, while the
elders are gossiping, or look on approvingly, and the air is filled with
lively music. Can it be that the melodies which we hear are the famous
old ones, "Toes les Bourgeois de Charters" and "Le Carillon de Dunker"?
It would hardly surprise us, as this quaint place seems a century or so
behind the times.
We wish we could stop for an hour or two to watch them; but trains wait
for no man, and we must return to Digby and there take steamer for St.
John.
That short passage of twelve leagues has been our bugbear for some days,
as travelers whom we met at Annapolis pictured its horrors so vividly,
representing its atrocities as exceeding those of the notorious English
Channel.
