Our lamented American poet never visited this region which he describes
so delightfully; his reason being that, cherishing an ideal picture, he
feared reality might dissipate it. Yet an easy journey of twenty-eight
hours would have brought him hither; and we, feeling confident that he
could not have been disappointed, shall always regret that he did not
come.
As an appropriate close to this sentimental journey, we drive through
the secluded Gaspereau valley, along the winding river, which is hardly
more than a creek, toward its wider part where it flows into the Basin,
which stretches out broad and shining. With such a view before us, we
cannot fail to picture mentally the tragic scenes of that October day
in 1755, when the fleet of great ships lay in the Basin, and
"When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed,
Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile,
Exile without an end, and without an example in story,"
those whom Burke describes as "the poor, innocent, deserving people,
whom our utter inability to govern or reconcile, gave us no sort of
right to extirpate," were torn from their happy homes, and
"Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean."
In the midst of these peaceful scenes was perpetrated a cruel wrong,
and an inoffensive people banished by the mandate of a tyrant!
