Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/255

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NORTHERN NOVA SCOTIA
207

and schooners, each owned by a different family in the little town that outlines the crescent harbour,—a town three miles long and two streets wide. The wrecks of stocks, piers and stores mark the water-front. In 1765 the Jersey fishing-firm of Robin & Co. set up a station which a few years later was raided by the dashing sea-rover whom a serious-minded local writer refers to as "the well-known pirate, Paul Jones." The ware house erected in 1797 on the south side of the harbour was moved a decade ago, and now does duty as a village store, with an Acadian Boudreau as proprietor. The Jerseymen gave up their plant when the demand for cod in the brine largely superseded that for "salt fish."

Steam vessels usurped brig and schooner. The trade of Arichat declined to a state of torpor. But fortunes made in fish and freighting preserved the inhabitants from poverty. Indeed, many of the dormered houses that lend a graceful air to the main street reflect the comfort and culture that were always the badge of Arichat.

Thirty years ago the women wore the Norman cap but the island metropolis is much too advanced for that now. Occasionally one hears obsolete French and English words interpolated in the native tongue, and very occasionally, as in the case of Cap'n Paddy, one meets a character-type that remains rooted in the memory. Once, Captain Patrick Richard possessed flakes and fishing-