Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/377

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PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
317

cal capital of the island but the social and commercial seat. It has roomy streets, parks and flowering plazas that are pleasing to the eye. The Government Buildings on Queen Square and some of the churches are dignified structures. Three converging rivers and the harbour formed by their united streams, as well as the shores of Hillsboro Bay offer opportunities for tranquil excursions by steamboat. The roads to Government House and Victoria Park, to Rocky Point and Pownal (7 m.) are the favourite promenades by carriage. Stages run daily to Cherry Valley, Bonshaw, Hampton, a vacation beach on the Strait, and Fort Augustus. On the outskirts of the capital are the Driving Park and Golf Links. Though Charlottetown is a pleasant enough place as a residence,—its founders called the site Port Joy,—it has no attraction for the tourist in search of the historic or unusual, unless one excepts an antiquated fort in the recreation ground at Rocky Point overlooking the bay, and the grey pile of Parliament House in whose Council Chamber were laid the foundations of the Dominion, September, 1864.

The towns of the island are consistently charmless; they are neither picturesque, quaint, shady nor home-like. On hot days the sun blazes upon their dusty and defenceless streets, making them places to flee from. The principal gulf resorts, Tracadie, Stanhope, Brackley Beach, Rustico are