Chapter 19
1758
Louisbourg
The stormy coast of Cape Breton is indented by a small land-locked bay,
between which and the ocean lies a tongue of land dotted with a few
grazing sheep, and intersected by rows of stone that mark more or less
distinctly the lines of what once were streets. Green mounds and
embankments of earth enclose the whole space, and beneath the highest of
them yawn arches and caverns of ancient masonry. This grassy solitude
was once the "Dunkirk of America;" the vaulted caverns where the sheep
find shelter from the ram were casemates where terrified women sought
refuge from storms of shot and shell, and the shapeless green mounds
were citadel, bastion, rampart, and glacis. Here stood Louisbourg; and
not all the efforts of its conquerors, nor all the havoc of succeeding
times, have availed to efface it. Men in hundreds toiled for months with
lever, spade, and gunpowder in the work of destruction, and for more
than a century it has served as a stone quarry; but the remains of its
vast defences still tell their tale of human valor and human woe.
Stand on the mounds that were once the King's Bastion. The glistening
sea spreads eastward three thousand miles, and its waves meet their
first rebuff against this iron coast. Lighthouse Point is white with
foam; jets of spray spout from the rocks of Goat Island; mist curls in
clouds from the seething surf that lashes the crags of Black Point, and
the sea boils like a caldron among the reefs by the harbor's mouth; but
on the calm water within, the small fishing vessels rest tranquil at
their moorings.
Pages:
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605