Page:1898 NB Magazine.djvu/46

excepting a few which remain, lonely and leafless.

Since the gully filled up, a large and beautiful point has been formed, called Major's Point or Doucet's Point, which includes the ridge above mentioned. The place where stood the island being level ground is now, in most parts, covered several feet deep with small round stones, washed thither during heavy storms and high tides. Towards the southerly part of it, however, there is a small spot to which the foaming and raging waves have refrained from carrying stones, because it stands on higher ground than the rest. When I first visited the spot, in 1885, there was nothing on it that would attract a stranger's attention, save a few mounds and small decayed wooden crosses. This spot is the first burial ground of the Acadians on St. Mary's Bay. Now a neat wooden fence, built in the autumn of 1889, encircles the last resting place of some of the unfortunate exiles of 1755. A large cedar cross with a suitable inscription on it was placed at the same time in the middle of this old cemetery, and also a little chapel, inside of which there is a beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin, erected by the inhabitants of Belliveau's Cove and St. Bernard, at the request of Rev. Father A. B. Parker, their then devoted and zealous parish priest, but now stationed at Hamilton Bermuda.

On visiting this ground, my heart throbbed with emotion and sorrow at the thought of what must have been the wants and sufferings of Pierrie Belliveau and his companions in this solitary spot during the winter of 1755–6. Death made great havoc amongst them, and they were buried here. What a sad Christmas must they have passed! John Thomas tells us that it was a very cold day at Halifax, and that there was some snow on the ground. The poor Acadian fugitives from Port Royal, in their huts built in haste on