Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/257

Rh good man. I respect you and confess to you. But even you may not say me when I die, neither you nor any one but le bon dieu. Perhaps I go again next year!"

The white road that brinks the Cap'n's small domain takes its way over a hill to the port of West Arichat, or Acadiaville. The island is but 16 miles long. The distance is not far even if we drive on to the point opposite Burnt Islands in Lennox Passage where a bridge has lately been laid to the Cape Breton coast, a link long-desired by the islanders as an aid to commerce and sociability. The interior of the island is watered by a chain of lakes where trout and partridge abound and the loon calls eerily. The drive to Descousse by Rocky Bay leads from Arichat to the north of the island 7 miles, edges the bay facing St. Peter's, and returns by Grand Lake. Petit de Grat is the most important fishing village of the island group and was the first place to be permanently settled. Here and on the fish wharves of Arichat one may choose haddock, salmon, cod or mackerel, shad or halibut, hake, pollock, tuna, flounder, smelt, trout, clams, lobsters or sword-fish for the day's dinner. The "P'tit d'Grat" fleet consists of a hundred vessels, many of them operated by motors.