Bird, Isabella Lucy (1856) The Eng/ishwoman in America. John Murray, London. [Reprinted 1966, with 
     
     foreword by A. H. Clark, University of Toronto Press. 497 + xxv pp.] 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     lsabella Lucy Bird (b. 783 I, d. 7904) was only 23 when during a North American tour in 7 854 she spent some 
     
     weeks in the late summer on Prince Edward Island using it as a temporary refuge from the cholera that was 
     
     sweeping parts of the continent. She kept a diary and was later to use her iottings as the basis for her first travel 
     
     book — it was to be the beginning of a career in which she would become one of the most popular and widely read 
     
     travel writers of her day. While on the island she ’wrote up' an excursion into the forest. Though it has a specific 
     
     geographical location, / suspect the spot, as described, has been embellished by the imagination of Miss Bird: we 
     
     can accept the snake, but the bats are suspect, and the springs — all seven of them (the magical number!) bubbling 
     
     a foot in the air — take us into the realm of gothic fantasy. If they ever existed beyond Miss Bird ’5 live/y prose style, 
     
     they are awaiting a second re—discovery by the good people of St Eleanors! I will only accept anything in the extract 
     
     as valid on a second rediscovery of the springs! 
     
    
   
   
    
     REFERENCE: Clark, A. H. (1966) Foreword, The Eng/ishwoman in America. University of Toronto Press. v-xx. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     Far in the distance were the sterile cliffs of Nova Scotia and the tumbling surges 
     
    
   
   
    
     new to of the Atlantic, while on three sides we were surrounded by land so low that the trees 
     
     the water. upon it seemed almost growing out of the water. The soil was the rich red of 
     
     Devonshire, the trees were of a brilliant green, and sylvan lawns ran up amongst 
     
     them. [p. 38] 
     
     Bears in deg/me, Bears, which used to be a great attraction to the more adventurous class of 
     
     sportsman, are however, rapidly disappearing. [p. 39] 
     
    
   
   
    
     from the graveyard one could catch glimpses of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and tall 
     
     pine trees flung their dark shadows over the low green graves. The purple beams 
     
     of the setting sun fell upon the dark pine woods, and lay in long lines upon the calm 
     
     waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. [p. 52] 
     
    
   
   
    
     Somewhere on 
     
     the north shore. 
     
    
   
   
    
     We remained for part of the next day with our hospitable friends at St. Eleanor’s, and 
     
     ’An old set out on an exploring expedition in search of a spring which Mr. K. [Rev. Mr. 
     
     untrodden forest’. Jenkins, the rector of St. Eleanors] remembered in his childish days. We went down 
     
    

    
     to a lonely cabin to make inquiries, and were told that "none but the old people knew 
     
    

    
     of it—it was far away in the woods." Here was mystery; so, leaving the waggon, into 
     
     the woods we went to seek for it, and far away in the woods we found it, and now 
     
     others besides the “old people" know of it. 
     
    

    
     We struck into the forest, an old, untrodden forest, where generations of trees had 
     
    

    
     rotted away, and strange flowers and lichens grew, and bats flew past us in the 
     
    

    
     artificial darkness; and there were snakes too, ugly spotted things, which hissed at 
     
    

    
     us, and put out their double tongues, and then coiled themselves away in the dim 
     
    

    
     recesses of the forest. But on we went, climbing with difficulty over prostrate firs, 
     
    

    
     or breaking through matted juniper, and still the spring was not, though we were "far 
     
     away in the woods”. But still we climbed on, through swamp and jungle, till we tore 
     
     our dresses to pieces, and our hats got pulled off in a tree and some of our hair with 
     
     them; but at last we reached the spring. It was such a scene as one might have 
     
     dreamed of in some forest in a fabulous Elysium. It was a large, deep basin of pure 
     
     white sand, covered with clear water, and seven powerful springs, each about a foot 
     
     high, rose from it; and trees had fallen over it, and were covered with bright green 
     
     moss, and others bent over it ready to fall; and above them tall hemlocks shut out the 
     
     light, except where a few stray beams glittered on the pure transparent water. And 
     
     here it lay in lonely beauty, as it has done for centuries, probably known only to the 
     
     old people and to wandering Indians. In enterprising England a town would have been 
     
     built round it, and we should have had cheap excursions to the "Baths of St. 
     
     Eleanor’s". [pp. 54-55] 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
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