Description A Strenuous Voyage From Auld Scotland

A Strenuous Voyage From Auld Scotland

Mr. George Fogo, of Pictou, Tells the Hardships Experienced by a Party of Highlanders, of Which His Father Was One, Sailing From Old Scotland to New.

By Rev. J. E. Forbes, Eureka

Note:  Very much pleased indeed was the writer upon the opening of motor navigation to be able to pay another visit to the home of Mr. George Fogo, Beaches Road, Pictou.  It was a pleasant surprise also to find that this old gentleman, who in the autumn enters his one hundredth year, had improved in health rather than the reverse during the winter months.  The remarkable this is, however, that so little improvement is needed.  About the only ill Mr. Fogo complains of is catarrh, which had affected his hearing.  He had been treating this with a homely remedy however and so it was much improved.

Some idea of how hale and hearty he is may be gathered from the fact that when the writer had to leave, Mr. Fogo jumped into the car with him, as actively as you like, and drove a quarter of a mile or so up to the mail box with the intention of walking back.

This all but centenarian, was in a reminiscent mood on the day we called and speedily settled down to tell the ancient tale whose title appears above, which was related to him by his father, the late James Fogo.

Strictly speaking, it is not a story of bygone days in Pictou County as the scene mostly laid upon the Atlantic Ocean and in Scotland but it ends up in Pictou and all’s well that end’s well.  It occurred something over a century ago as Mr. Fogo was born in Pictou.

One further preliminary statement must be made, and that is necessary to safequard this gentleman’s modesty in the case of readers who do not know him.  Those that do will be in no danger of making such a mistake.  When the writer paints Mr. James Fogo as a leader of men and a sort of aristocrat in the better sense of that term, he is not getting his material from his son except to read between the lines.  Rather he had gleaned if from other Pictonians, and more particularly from citizens of the shire town.

 

Stormy and incredulous were the faces of the passengers as they listened to the Captain’s statement that the leak which had been bothering the crew for some days was so serious that they must turn back to Scotland.

There were so many reasons why they should not believe him some subjective and others objective.

For one thing they were mostly highlanders and he hailed from the South.  They had never found that the Saxon could be left without checking up in his dealings with the Gael.  Again they had detected him in one or two tricks and so distrusted him in everything; besides his face was sinister in its expression and his eyes shifty and uncertain. The passengers felt that there was nothing of the “sail on” spirit of Columbus about him whatever, but instead he was looking for some excuse to turn back.

When he had finished, there was a moment’s silence and it is hard to say what might have happened for hot-heads were there and Highland blood was up, but all the once a quiet, but determined looking man stepped to the front and addressed the Captain.  During the long days and nights since they had left Scotland, James Fogo had gradually come to be regarded by the passengers as their leader and now they were ready to accept him as their spokesman to the Captain.  They did not anticipate that he would give such a mild answer to their captain or some of them might have demurred, but let us hear the answer first before discussing the quality.

Quietly and determinedly James Fogo told that worthy Captain that they would go back with him, but to remember that Scotland was a civilized land where there was a law to be invoked, and that he need not think he could get out of landing them finally in Nova Scotia.   They had paid their money and he must see that they reached their destination. 

The thing wherein his ultimatum to the Captain differed from the sentiments of most of the other passengers was in his consenting without a strenuous struggle at least, to go back under any consideration.

Well, an hour before James Fogo would not have given in on this point himself, but he had just come from the cabin below, where on of his children lay without doubt at the point of death, and a second was in an almost equally dangerous condition.

His wife had said to him in her beautiful Edinburgh accent he himself being a native of Glasgow, “Ah James, if yon Captain wants to turn back dinna raise any opposition for if we maun lose Janet and Jamie, it would wring the heart out of my bosom to have the poor bairns thrown into the sea.  It will be bad enough tae have them laid in the cauld ground.”

Well, we must hasten on into our story.  Suffice it to say that another man of weight, a Mr. Wilson, who afterwards settled at Brule, or near that place and became a great gardener, took the same stand so the passengers acquiesced and many days later the ship arrived at a Scottish port.  Tradition has it that this was a Portobello on the east coast and not to be confused with the Porto Bello in Panama, which latter consists of two separate words. 

Upon their arrival, two little coffins were sent ashore and latter deposited in Mother Earth, which meant that two very sad hearts were aboard the ship, particularly the mother’s.  Whether any other children were left to them one does not know.

The days passed and the leak being repaired, large numbers of barrels of supplies were brought on board, most of them marked “meat”.

One passenger remarked to another that the Captain was evidently going to feed them better this trip than he did during the first attempt crossing the Atlantic.

His companion was a suspicious Scot and replied that he feared treachery of some kind, because it must be costing the Captain, or whoever had to pay it, much more than if they had not been compelled to return.

That evening the first mate sought James Fogo, looking furtively behind him to see that he was not observed.  When they were alone together he whispered to him not to tell from whence his information had come, but to beware of sailing under present conditions or they would all starve.  He declared that many of the barrels marked as containing meats had nothing in them but turnips, while others were filled with horses heads or other refuse.

Well, Mr. Fogo took two men into his confidence, the Mr. Wilson, afterwards of Brule or vicinity, and a third whose name has not come down to us.  Together they sought the customs authorities.  Soon the latter came on board and demanded that these barrels of supplies be opened one by one.

The truth of the mate’s story was soon established and when the turnips turned up upon the barrel being opened, the customs officer would tell the sailors to place it to one side but when the horses’ heads were disclosed by taking the head out of the barrel, they were dumped over into the sea.

“Now,” said the customs officer to the crestfallen Captain, “your old ship will rot at the quay here before I allow you to sail, unless you send to the North of Scotland and get cattle; then you must kill them and salt them down in these barrels before my eyes.”

This was done in due time, but the supply was not as great as James Fogo desired to see, so he bought a number of hams and other things on his own account and took them along.

Day after day, as the voyage progressed the passengers used to watch with amusement and curiosity one of their number, a canny Scot going around after meals with a sack, gathering up every little bit of bread or other food that happened to be thrown around.

Some jeered at him for his meanness, other thought him a little off his mind and pitied him, but he said nothing and persisted with great regularity.

Well, it turned out that the voyage was longer than anyone had anticipated.  Including the first attempt, the ship’s company were three months on the sea.

The extra food Mr. Fogo had taken really saved the day, and he made the Captain pay for it after they reached port.  As for the man who had picked up the scraps, he became the hero of the company before the voyage was over, for it is recorded that the last three days before they arrived in Pictou the crew of the ship had nothing to keep themselves alive with except the old dry scraps which he had stored up in prosperous times.

Most of the passengers left the ship at the old shire town, but the ultimate destination was Halifax.

Both the names of the ship and Captain are lost in oblivion.  The Bible says that the name of the wicked shall rot, and this was a rather ill-behaved craft, although a kingdom-come to her nefarious skipper.

Surely it was a strenuous swapping of Scotias for these passengers in general, and especially for the grief-stricken couple, who left two little graves at Portobello, the price they paid for their daring and enterprise.