44 OVER ON THE ISLAND

to the boats, and to leave the Acadians to their fate. The Duke William and the Violet went down; but the men in the life-boats drifted to safety on the English coast.

This was only one deportation. Shortly after the treaty of peace, the French government fitted out three ships to transport the much-moved Acadians to the Falkland Islands.

What a contrast in islands! The poor Acadians left a veritable paradise of green trees and red soil to settle in a treeless, grass-covered land. Before, they had been swept by the wind from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Now they had the ceaseless winds of the South Atlantic. As the boats draw near, the fearless penguins waddle down to welcome their visitors. The children cling to their mothers’ skirts afraid of these solemn, confident creatures. In despair the fathers eye the treeless plain. The future looks bleak .

A few years later there is trouble again. The Acadians again embark, this time to the mainland of South America. Meanwhile, back in Isle St. Jean, the English owner of a French farm is visited by the spirit of the former French owner.

“Peace be unto thee, Anglais,” it murmurs, “For not until a white house crowns each hill and a mill stands by each stream shall the French possess the land again.”

I wonder when that will be.

It seems hard to understand why the English acted as they did. This deportation of 1758 was dissimilar in many respects from the Acadian Expulsion of 1755. The latter, at least, had been given the opportunity of retaining their lands by swearing