12 PAST AND PRESENT OF

but that there were sand—hills along the coast, He saw natives in theirboats at a river, which he named the “River of Boats,” and is sup- posed to be the entrance to Richmond Bay. He saw more natives towards the North Cape, near .which he also ‘ landed. He rounded the cape, where he noted the long and dangerous reef. The appearance of the wholelcountry, with its fine woods, he grant- ly admired. Sailing up the coast, after round- ing the cape, he saw the land apparently closing in on both sides, but could see no harbor, and then turned back. He did not know it was an island, but supposed it to be part of the mainland. It was not known to be an island until long afterwards, when it was named the Island of St. John.*

St. John the Baptist seems. to have been the cause of much of the confusion and doubt that exists, and has long existed, regarding the early history of this Island. His was a favorite name with the old navigators, and we find it in many places, hence the con- fusion. There were Cabot’s Island of St. . John, off the east coast of Cape Breton; . Gomez's Island of St. John, meaning Cape Breton itself; on Sebastian Cabot’s map of

'In preparing this part of his paper. the writer has been much indebted to the excellent work of Dr. S. E. Dawson, and in deference to his rest authority. has adopted. in the text. 0a Turner and .von asthe parts of Prince Edward Island rat seen by Cartier. He has also consulted Mr. Joseph Pope’s " Jacques Cartier," in which the lands seen are

laced far herwest. and Kildare River is an to be the er of Boats. Cartier approachin the Is nd, saw two high lands which looked like islands the distance. There were formerly some very high sand hills. lmmvn as the Seven Sisters. to the eastward of Oascuxnpec or Holland Bay, of! the shores of Township No. ll. These were swept away by stoma some time in the middle of the last century. Till then theywere most prominent objects, particularly when a preached from the sea. These. the writer would so ., were the two high islands seen by Cartier. If so. re River would be the River of Boats. and the Ca e of the same name was Cape Orleans. The Kildare seems answer Oar- tier's dmcription better than Richmond Bay. The writer, who spent his boyhood in that rt of the Island. ls person- allylnclined to with Mr. 0 . A very stron objec~ tion to this view - the distance (a at forty] es which (hrtier says he railed to the westward after see us the two supposed islands. From where the most eastern of the seven Sisters were to be seen to Kildare River would not be more than twenty leagues. even following the bends of the coast. Hence. Cartiers leagues do not apply to either. If the dktance sailed is wouldhemorea plica letm (h Turner than to the Seven Sisters. Can it that the es of forty leagues sailed was an erroneous entry for a much shorter run?

van with any degree of accuracy it _

I 544 the Magdalens are called St. John; then there were St. John’s, Newfoundland, the river St. John, and others. No wonder that, at a later date, Governor Patterson complained of mails going astray, and asked to have the name changed.

’ Nothing further is known of the Island for a century. Not even that greatest of French explorers, Champlain, seems to have set foot on her shores, although he was aware of her existence. Cartier’s discovery would certainly have conferred upon France the first claim to the ownership of the Island, but it was long overlooked, or, probably, the French were too busily employed at home, where they had plenty of troubles to engage their attention, to give much thought to their North American possessions. The Bretons and Basques, as well as the Portu- guese, English and other nationalities, re- sorted more and more to the Newfoundland fisheries, which were carried on before Car- tier’s time, and undoubtedly they would not neglect the rich fisheries of Cape Breton. It is also most unlikely that these hardy fisher- men did not seek their fares round the Mag- dalens, and in the teeming waters off the shores of Prince Edward Island. But their business was catching and curing fish; reap- ing the harvest of the sea, and not settlement or exploration. It is even likely that they would land and erect their flakes and shel- ters on the coasts of these different lands, but there is nothing to tell us of what they saw or did, or how the Island fared, or how her swarthy inhabitants occupied themselves during the long years when, after Jacques Cartier’s visit, she slumbered and slept in all the beauty of her forests and streams, her bright skies and splendid summer climate; or how the winter months of isolation sped

away.