From Chambers's Journal. on the soil which they had subdued, scarcely conscious that they had changed their rulers. They took, indeed, an oath of fidelity and subIN travelling through Nova Scotia, the tourist mission to the English king; but, in return, they is struck with the numerous memorials of the were promised indulgence in "the true exercise early French inhabitants. Along the roadsides of their religion, and exemption from bearing are seen ancient orchards, which had been planted arms against the French or Indians." On acby those industrious and peaceful settlers. Rows count of this, they became known under the of tall Lombardy poplars, also, remind us of name of the "French Neutrals." For nearly France; and in the alluvial plains of Cornwallis forty years from the Peace of Utrecht, they were and Annapolis, our attention is called to long left undisturbed in the possession of their prosgreen mounds, or dikes, which had been con- perous seclusion. "No tax-gatherer counted structed by the old French proprietors. Where- their folds; no magistrate dwelt in their hamever, indeed, there is any old work of art, it is lets. The parish priest made their records, and French, unless it happen to be a decayed block-regulated their successions. Their little dishouse or fort, which had been erected for the putes were settled among themselves, with purpose of oppressing that ill-treated people. scarcely an instance of an appeal to English One hears so much of the virtues of the Pilgrim authority at Annapolis. The pastures were covFathers, that it would almost seem as if there ered with their herds and flocks; and dikes, were nothing to be admired in any other class raised by extraordinary efforts of social industry, of American settlers; and yet in the original shut out the rivers and the tide from the alluvial French occupants of Nova Scotia would have marshes of exuberant fertility. The meadows been found an example of great integrity, with a thus reclaimed were covered by richest grasses, kindliness of manner and a depth of piety sel- or fields of wheat, that yielded fifty and thirty dom equalled; while the sufferings to which this fold at the harvest. Their houses were built in people were subjected at the hands of the British clusters, neatly constructed and comfortably furGovernment, must ever command the utmost nished, and around them all kinds of domestic sympathy and regret. fowls abounded. With the spinning-wheel and It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, the loom the women made, of flax from their that Nova Scotia, under the name of Acadia, own fields, of fleeces from their own flocks, was the earliest French possession in America. coarse but sufficient clothing. The few foreign There a few adventurous families from the north luxuries that were coveted could be obtained of France had built their dwellings, about six-from Annapolis or Louisburg, in return for furs, teen years before the Puritans landed in Massa- or wheat, or cattle. Thus were the Acadians chusetts. In process of time, they had cleared happy in their neutrality, and in the abundance the forest, multiplied its numbers, and in all respects approved themselves a thriving and peaceable community. Through a long succession of years, nothing appears to have disturbed them in their solitary and hard-earned possessions. As French subjects, and professors of the Roman Catholic religion, they may have been to some extent obnoxious to the nearest English settlements, the inhabitants of which, from strong hereditary reasons, had a fierce abhorrence of "Popery;" but with these the Acadians had too little intercourse, to be much influenced by the feelings or opinions they might entertain respecting them. Nor were they, for a long time, much disturbed by the contest in which the French and English Governments became engaged for the acquisition of further territory, and the consequent limitation of the power of each nation. This contest, however, was frequently interrupted by treaties and arrangements respecting boundaries, some of which had reference to the occupation of Acadia; and at length, by a stipulation made at the Peace of Utrecht, the province was finally ceded to Great Britain. The change of sovereignty does not appear at first to have effected any material alteration in the condition of the people. It was intended to secure their obedience by intermixing them with English colonists; but the presence of a feeble garrison at Annapolis, and the emigration of hardly half-a-dozen English families, were for many years nearly all that marked the supremacy of England. The old inhabitants remained! which they drew from their native land. They formed, as it were, one great family. Their morals were of unaffected purity. Love was sanctified and calmed by the universal custom of early marriages. The neighbors of the community would assist the new couple to raise their cottage, while the wilderness offered land. Their numbers increased; and the colony, which had begun only as the trading-station of a company with the monopoly of the fur-trade, counted perhaps 16,000 or 17,000 inhabitants."* At length, however, England vigorously undertook to colonize the country, and from that time the independence of these simple people began to be seriously affected. In March, 1749, proposals were made to disbanded officers, soldiers, and marines, to accept and occupy the vacant lands; and before the end of June, more than 1,400 persons, under the auspices of the British Parliament, were conducted by Colonel Edward Cornwallis into the harbor of Chebucto. "There, on a cold and sterile soil, covered to the water's edge with one continued forest of spruce and pine, whose thick underwood and gloomy shade hid rocks and the rudest wilds, with no clear spot to be seen or heard of," rose the present town of Halifax. Before winter, 300 houses were covered in. At a place now called Lower Horton, a block-house was also raised, and fortified by a trench and a palisade: while on the present site of Windsor, a fort was soon erected, to protect the communications with the * Bancroft's History of the Am. Revolution. town. These positions, with Annapolis on the Bay of Fundy, secured the peninsula to the English, a part of which had now again become matter of dispute between the French and British Governments. To make sure of the submission of the French inhabitants, it was suddenly proclaimed to their deputies convened at Halifax, that English commissioners would repair to their villages, and require them to take the oath of allegiance unconditionally. This placed them in a perilous predicament. They could not pledge themselves to join in war against the land of their origin and love; and so, in a letter signed by a thousand of their men, they pleaded rather for leave to sell their lands and effects, and abandon the peninsula for other homes, which France, as they supposed, would generously provide. But Cornwallis would offer them no choice, save between unconditional allegiance and the total confiscation of their property. "It is for me," said he, to command and to be obeyed." And as he had the power to enforce his unjust exactions, the poor Acadians were subjected to the most merciless severities. masters of the sea, were undisputed lords of the Their papers and records, the titles to their estates and inheritances, were taken from them. In cases where their property was demanded for the public service, they were informed that "they were not to be bargained with for payment." An order to this effect, says Mr. Bancroft, may still be read in the council records at Halifax. They were told that they must comply, without making any terms, and that "immediately, or the next courier would bring an order for military execution upon the delinquents." And when on some occasions they delayed in providing firewood for their oppressors, it was told them from the Government, that if they did not do it in proper time, the soldiers should "absolutely take their houses for fuel." Under pretence of fearing that they might rise in behalf of France, escape to Canada, or convey provisions to the French garrisons, they were ordered to surrender their boats and firearms; which, accordingly, they did,-transmigration. leaving themselves defenceless, and without the means of flight. Not long afterwards, orders were given to the English officers to punish the Acadians at discretion, should they in any case behave amiss; if the troops were annoyed, vengeance was to be inflicted on the nearest, whether the guilty one or not, after the rate of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," These, and similar severities, were in course of perpetration for nearly seven years. Meanwhile, the French, who disputed the right of the English to a portion of the country which they claimed, took military occupation of the isthmus that formed the natural boundary between Acadia and the province of New France. Hence, however, their forces were ejected with little difficulty, in 1755; and thenceforward the Acadians seemed to be left without the possibility of redress. In their extremity, they cowered before their masters, hoping forbearance; not unwilling to take an oath of fealty to England, yet in their single-mindedness and sincerity, still refusing to pledge themselves to bear arms against the land from which they sprung. The English were * (6 'By In the day of their affliction, France remembered the descendants of her sons, and asked that they might have time to remove from the peninsula with their effects, leaving their lands and homesteads to their conquerors; but in his answer, the British minister claimed them as useful subjects, and refused them the liberty of ८८ Some of the inhabitants pleaded with the British officers for the restitution of their boats and guns, promising fidelity if they could but retain their liberties, and declaring that not the want of arms, but their consciences, should en"The memorial," gage them never to revolt. said Lawrence in council, is highly arrogant, insidious, and insulting." Nevertheless, the memorialists, at his summons, came submissively to "You want your canoes for carrying Halifax. provisions to the enemy," said he deridingly, though he knew no enemy was left in their vicinity. "Guns are no part of your goods," he continued, "as by the laws of England all Roman Catholics are restrained from having arms, and are subject to penalties if arms are found in their houses. It is not the language of British subjects to talk of terms with the crown, or capitulate about their fidelity and allegiance. What excuse can you make for your presumption in treating this government with such indignity, as *Halifax and his Colleagues to Lawrence, 29th Oct., 1754. Quoted by Bancroft. i. p. 227. to expound to them the nature of fidelity? Ma-pitiful privilege which that goodness granted nifest your obedience by immediately taking the might as well have been withheld, since in effect oaths of allegiance in the common form before it did not render them any the less destitute. the council."* Their wives and families were also the king's but for the morning, and now they were never to return. "Their cattle were to stay unfed in the stalls, their fires to die out on their hearths. They had for that first day even no food for themselves or their children, and were compelled to beg for bread." To this demand the deputies replied, that they prisoners-numbering with themselves 1923 perwould do as the generality of the inhabitants sons. The doom which had been some time preshould determinne. The next day, however, paring for them took them completely by surforeseeing the sorrows that awaited them, they prise. They had left home, as they supposed, offered to swear allegiance unconditionally; but they were told that, by a clause in a certain British statute, persons who have once refused the oaths cannot be afterwards permitted to take them, but are to be considered as popish recusants; and as such they were immediately imprisoned. The chief-justice, on whose opinion But a still more bitter day was coming. It hung the fate of so many innocent families, in- was fixed that on the 10th of September a part sisted that they were to be looked upon as con- of the exiles should be embarked. "They were firmed "rebels," who had now collectively and drawn up six deep," writes Mr. Bancroft, “and without exception become "recusants." Besides, the young men, 161 in number, were ordered to as they were still 8,000 or more in numbers, and march first on board the vessel. They could the English did not exceed 3,000, they stood in leave their farms and cottages, the shady rocks the way of the progress of the settlement; "by on which they had reclined, their herds and their their non-compliance with the conditions of the garners; but nature yearned within them, and treaty of Utrecht, they had forfeited their pos- they would not be separated from their parents. sessions to the crown;" and after the departure Yet of what avail was the phrenzied despair of "of the fleet and troops, the province would not the unarmed youth? They had not one weapon, be in a condition to drive them out." "Such a the bayonet drove them to obey; and they juncture as the present might never occur;" so marched slowly and heavily from the chapel to he advised that the French inhabitants should the shore, between women and children, who, not be permitted to take the oaths, but that the kneeling, prayed for blessings on their heads, whole of them should be removed from the pro- they themselves weeping, and praying and singvince. After mature consideration, it was re-ing hymns. The seniors went next: the wives solved in council to act on this suggestion; and and children must wait till other transport vesin order to prevent the ejected people from at- sels arrive. The delay had its horrors. The tempting to return and molest the settlers that wretched people left behind were kept together might be set down on their lands, it was deter-near the sea, without proper food, or raiment, or mined that it would be most proper to distribute shelter, till other ships came to take them away; them amongst the several colònies on the conti- and December, with its appalling cold, had struck the shivering, half-clad, broken-hearted sufferers nent. To secure the success of the scheme, an un-before the last of them were removed. The emgenerous artifice was adopted. By a general barcation of the inhabitants goes on but slowly,' proclamation, on one and the same day, they wrote Monckton from Fort Cumberland, near were peremptorily ordered-" both old and young which he had burned three hamlets; "the most men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age" part of the wives of the men we have prisoners -to assemble in specified localities on the 5th are gone off with their children, in hopes I would day of September, (1755). Not knowing for not send off their husbands without them.' what purpose, they innocently obeyed. For ex-Their hope was vain. Near Annapolis, 100 ample, at Grand Pré, 418 unarmed men came to-heads of families fled to the woods, and a party gether. They were marched into the church, was detached on the hunt to bring them in. and the doors were closed, when Winslow, the Our soldiers hate thein,' wrote an officer on this American commander, rose up, and thus ad- occasion; and if they can but find a pretext to dressed them: "You are convened together to kill them, they will.' Did a prisoner seek to csmanifest to you his majesty's final resolution to cape?-he was shot by the sentinel. Yet some the French inhabitants of this his province. fled to Quebec; more than 3,000 had withdrawn Your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds to Mirimichi and the region south of the Ristiand live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the gouche; some found rest on the banks of the crown, and you yourselves are to be removed St. John's and its branches; some found a lair from this his province. I am, through his ma- in their native forests; some were charitably jesty's goodness, directed to allow you liberty to carry off your money and household goods, as many as you can, without discommoding the vessels you go in." And he thereupon declared them the king's prisoners. What a sound of mocking irony there must have rung through that expression-" his majesty's goodness!" The sheltered from the English in the wigwams of the savages. But 7,000 of these banished people were driven on board ships, and scattered among the English colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia; 1020 to South Carolina alone. They were cast ashore without resources; hating the poor-house as a shelter for their offspring, and abhorring the thought of selling themselves as laborers. Households, too, were separated; Record of Council held at Halifax, 3d July, the colonial newspapers contained advertisements 1755. Quoted by Bancroft. of members of families seeking their compan ions, of sons anxious to reach and relieve their many other instances, "has made countless thouparents, of mothers mourning for their children." sands mourn." Theirs, truly, is as sad a story as Poor wanderers! how they sighed for the it can readily fall to one's lot to read; and, as pleasant villages whence they had been so cruelly such, it cannot fail to excite interest and sympadriven out, and where they had so long dwelt so thy in all who can feel compassion for the desopeacefully! But the hand that had expelled late and oppressed. them was sternly raised to hinder them from re- By these deeds of violence, the French were turning. Their villages, from Annapolis to the extirpated from Acadia. Only a few in obscure isthmus, were laid waste. Their old homes were nooks escaped; and the descendants of these till heaps of ruins. In one district, as many as 250 the present day retain the language, the manof their houses, and more than as many barns, iners, and the religion of their forefathers-a cuwere entirely consumed. Their confiscated live riosity in the present social system of Nova stock, consisting of great numbers of horses, Scotia. sheep, hogs, and horned cattle, were seized as spoils, and disposed of by the unscrupulous officials. "A beautiful and fertile tract of country was reduced to a solitude. There was left round the ashes of the cottages of the Acadians but the faithful watch-dog, vainly seeking the hands that fed him. Thickets of forest trees choked their orchards; the ocean broke over their neglected dykes, and desolated their meadows." The whole land was cast back into the wilderness, and, had the dispersed inhabitants gone back to it, they would have hardly recognized a spot within its boundaries. From Chambers's Journal. at AN EPISODE IN MONKEY-LIFE. I HAVE had some experience of what a jungle-life in India is, and cannot therefore ignore a certain amount of familiarity with a class of animals which, from the days of Eve's temptation, has acquired a character for cunning, inalignity, and spite, from which its aspect times, indeed, the very beauty of uglinessby no means exonerates it. Emblems of the The exiles could not rest in their captivity; but relentless misfortune pursued them, by what revolting and the terrible have serpents always ever way they sought after deliverance. Those been, and yet who can deny that a certain sent to Georgia, drawn by a love for the spot singular fascination belongs to them, which where they were born, escaped to sea in boats, renders the slenderest details about them and went coasting on from harbor to harbor strangely interesting, even to those who retill they reached New England; but just as they gard them with utter abhorrence? Not only would have set sail for their native fields, they in the kingdom of Snakedom have I freely were stopped by orders from Nova Scotia. Those wandered, without, alas! having acquired that who dwelt on the St. John's were once more magical masterdom over the reptile race of driven out from their new homes. When Cana- which George Borrow naturally boasts, but I da surrendered, the 1500 who remained south of have also had some ongoings with the monkeythe Restigouche were pursued by the scourges tribe; and the other day, as I was hunting up of unrelenting hatred. Those who dwelt in Pennsylvania presented a humble petition to the a parcel of old manuscript journals for some Earl of Loudoun, then the British commander- records of my ancient soldiership, I came upon in-chief in America; and in return, his lordship, a page or two that contained anecdotal remioffended that the prayer was made in French, niscences of facts which I had myself witseized their five principal men, who in their own nessed in reference to both snake and monland had been persons of dignity and substance, key, of sufficient singularity to warrant publiand shipped them to England, with the request | cation. Let it not be supposed that I am a that they might be consigned to service as com- naturalist, a scientific judge of the creatures mon sailors on board ships of war, and thus be of the woods, be they crawlers or catamounts, kept from ever again becoming troublesome. No doubt existed of the king's approbation of these mice or monkeys. I intend simply to relate proceedings. "The Lords of Trade, more mer- what fell under my own observation, without ciless than the savages and than the wilderness pretending to describe classically, or even to in winter, wished very much that every one of classify methodically, the peculiar races to the Acadians should be driven out; and when which the individuals of my text belonged. it seemed that the work was done, congratulated the king that the zealous endeavors of Lawrence had been crowned with an entire success.' "" Wherever they turned, or whatever they did, these despoiled and outcast people encountered nothing but calamity. In their abject desolation, it even seemed to them that their cause was re A soldier from early youth, rudely trained in camp and cantonment, I was far more eager to study the gazels and rekhtas of the love-sick Hindoo poets, as chanted by the sweet-voiced dancing-girls of the Deccan, than to acquire even a superficial knowledge of that useful jected by the universe. "We have been true," branch of natural history which would have said they, "to our religion, and true to ourselves, taught me to distinguish at sight a poisonous yet nature appears to consider us only as the ob- from a harmless reptile, a useful and edible ject of public vengeance." Their hard fate from an unwholesome or deleterious vegetable. might well impress them with even that disheart- Many years ago, in the year 1823, I hapening conviction; yet it was not nature's doing pened to be with my regiment. but man's inhumanity to man," which in solof Madras native infantry a battalion on the march from Bangalore, in Mysore, to Kulladghee, in diabolic agencies. Yells, shrieks, hootings, the Doab. We had reached the hill-forts of indescribably wild, detained us as if by a spell Badaumy, in the province of Bejapoor, where for more than an hour; and presently when we halted for a day; and at any place more the moon rose we could distinguish the impstrikingly picturesque we had not stopped dur-like creatures springing from tree to rock, and ing the three hundred and odd miles we had from stone to stone, up among the cliffs, and, traversed. Yet it has curiously escaped the as we supposed, exercising some warlike evoobservation and description of which it is wor-lutions, or engaged in some fierce gala, of anithy; as far as I know, the only mention of mal life, until by dint of observation we really Badaumy on record are the few lines in Ham- came to think they had got up a dramatic reillon's Gazetteer, that give it a lat. 16 deg. presentation for our peculiar amusement. We 6 min. N., a long. 75 deg. 46 min. E., and were afterwards informed, that the opposite term it a place of some strength, which can be ridges of the mountains were severally occutaken only by a regular siege, which would re- pied by two distinct families or clans of monquire a heavy equipment. To this scanty keys the very Montagues and Capulets of and vague account I will only add, that not the order Simia-between whom reigned a only from its position, on and among strange- perpetual feud, which often terminated in ly shaped mountains, and the capabilities it blood and death. possesses, and which have been taken advan- Some months after our arrival at Kulladgtage of by the Mahrattas, as a fortified station; hee, I applied for a few weeks' leave; which but likewise from its being a noted stronghold being granted, I resolved to revisit Badaumy. of Hindoo idols, in caves and temples, and I reached it at a season when the surrounding mysterious crypts, reached only by winding country was arrayed in the brightest livery of subterranean stairs and passages cut through summer; and in addition to the attractions the cliffs, it deserves a close survey and scru-supplied by the wild windings and subterratiny from some individual willing and able to nean passages to the fort-hills, with the caverndescribe, fully and truthfully, the place and ous temples in the rocks, containing the whole the marvels it contains. Hindoo Pantheon in beautifully carved images I have never witnessed the wonders of Elora of an amazing size, I found great pleasure in or Elephanta, but though on a diminished traversing the jungles around, climbing the scale, the lions of Badaumy are of the same rocks, and penetrating into the ravines, in nature, and compel admiration from the least search of plants and wild berries, whose nature enthusiastic observer. The hill-forts them- and native names were revealed to me by my selves, comprising two different sides or peaks faithful Mussulman moonshee, or teacher, who of the same mountain-ridge in whose recesses had consented to accompany me. To this truly the small town is built, are specimens of what excellent man, Noor-ood-Deen, I owe my first art can do when nature has prepared the introduction to the art of simple gathering; foundation for its labors. At the very top of and in after-days, during a campaign, when the steepest precipice, a pool of excellent wa- the addition of a single wholesome vegetable ter supplies that element from sources which to our wretched meals became a rare luxury, no amount of heat has ever exhausted; and I had reason to remember with gratitude that down in the narrow valley, amongst the houses his advice and teachings had suggested the of the village, a large and well-built talab, or utility as well as lovableness of the study of tank, of delicious water- - cool and whole- botany. some, though of a bright smaragdus green- He taught me likewise to observe the habits affords unfailing refreshment. On each side of those very monkey's, whose nocturnal orgies of this pond are houses or gardens, and over had startled us on our first arrival at Badautwo ends of this mountain-gap lower the twin-my, as well as to distinguish the speckled gray fortalices, oposite cach other-the highest and white tree-snake, which is so fatal, from precipice, called Runmundle, being grotesque the spotted brown and green one, which haunts in shape, and terrific in gloomy grandeur. the same bowery recesses, yet is harmless. Encamped outside the town, no sooner had night descended upon us, ere the reports we had heard of the number of sacred monkeys that abounded in the neighborhood were confirmed. Had we reached the place at night, ignorant of this fact, we might have concluded that we had fallen upon some terrible Armageddon, haunted by rebellious ghouls and afrits in venomous conflict; for from every peak and jutting promontory arose such a discord of monkey-voices, as, in other circumstances, one would have been only too ready to ascribe to He told me that venomous serpents are gener ally marked by a greater width of cerebral formation behind, which gives to the neck the appearance of being smaller than it really is; and he warned me to beware of dark and briery paths, where the track of snails was dis cernible- such being a sure indication of the vicinity of snakes. From him I learned, that some of the deadliest, when taken unawares, roll themselves up spirally, the head elevated, when suddenly uncoiling, they spring forward on their disturber, man or beast, with surpris |