Upon the seacoast, twenty-five miles southeast of Sydney, is a low headland with a dark rocky island in the offing. This headland is Cape Breton, originally named for the Breton French fishermen who frequented it, and it in turn named Cape Breton Island. Just west of Cape Breton is an admirable harbor which, being frequented in the early days by English fishermen, the French named the _Havre aux Anglais_, or the "English Port." Upon Point Rochefort, on its western side, stood the famous French fortress and town of Louisbourg, which was called "the Dunkirk of America." While grass-grown ruins and some of the ramparts are still traceable, and visitors find relics, yet little is left of this great fortress, once regarded as the "Key to New France," or of the populous French town on the harbor which in the eighteenth century had a trade of the first importance. It was twice captured, after remarkable sieges and battles of world-wide renown, causing the most profound sensations at the time, and now absolutely nothing is left of the original place but an old graveyard on the point, where French and English dust commingle in peace under a mantle of dark greensward. There is at present a settlement of about a thousand people around the harbor, mainly engaged in the fisheries. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 transferred Newfoundland and Acadia from France to England, but the French held Cape Breton Island, and many of their refugees came hither. It was not long before the French King, Louis XIV., stirred by Admiral Walker's proclamation and anxious about Canada, determined to fortify the "English Port" and make a commercial depot there, and in 1714 the plan was laid out, the name being changed to Louisbourg. In 1720 work began on a prodigious scale, the intention being to make it the leading fortress in America, and for more than twenty years France devoted its energy and resources to the completion of the stupendous fortifications, attracting inhabitants to the place by bounties, and creating a brisk trade by sea which soon drew inhabitants for a large town. When completed, this town stood upon the neck of land on the southwest side of the harbor enclosed by stone walls having a circuit of nearly three miles. These walls were thirty-six feet high and forty feet thick at the base, with a ditch outside eighty feet wide. The fortress was constructed in the first system of the noted French engineer, Vauban, and required a large garrison. A battery of thirty guns was located on Goat Island, at the harbor entrance, and at the bottom of the harbor opposite the entrance was another, the Royal Battery, also of thirty guns. The land and harbor sides of the town were defended by ramparts and bastions on which eighty guns were mounted, the land side also having a deep moat and projecting bastions, the West Gate on that side being overlooked by a battery of sixteen guns. There was a ponderous Citadel, and in the centre of the town the stately stone church of St.