From Blomidon to Smoky

AGAINST the Bay of Fundy, with its fogs and turbulent waters, Nova Scotia presents a bold front of bastion and moat combined. The bastion is called North Mountain, and is a well-wooded ridge running parallel to the southeast shore of the Bay of Fundy for nearly its entire length. The moat consists of St. Mary’s Bay, the Annapolis Basin, and the Basin of Minas, and their tributary rivers, all lying within the line of North Mountain. Parallel with both bastion and moat, and presiding over the well-tilled fields which border the several basins, is South Mountain, from whose height can be obtained the finest views of the land of Evangeline, and its impressive central figure, the spruce-covered, storm-haunted Blomidon.

When we landed at Yarmouth, far down near the southern tip of Nova Scotia, and saw the monotonous country which is characteristic of that part of the province, something very much like gloom settled upon our spirits. We took an early morning train, and started eastward and northward towards Blomidon. Rain, miles of larch and spruce swamp, burned woodland given up to tangles of fireweed and briers, and cheerless, rockrimmed ponds in low woods haunted us until we reached Digby. True, our escape from the railway at Metaghan station, and our five hours with Mr. Sheehan, the royal mail carrier and hospitable hotel keeper, brightened us somewhat; but there was nothing at the railway to tell us of the quaint French settlement of Metaghan which lay concealed, beyond ridge and woods, on the pleasant shores of St. Mary’s Bay. As we left Digby, late in the afternoon of this first long day in Nova Scotia, the clouds broke, the setting sun struggled for the mastery of the sky, and all the heavens were filled with shifting masses of storm and charging columns of golden light. The bank of vapor which had rested upon the Annapolis Basin at North Mountain — vapor brewed, no doubt, in the Bay of Fundy—suddenly lifted, and we saw under it not only the vivid greens of forest and field on the mountain, but Digby Gut, a narrow, steep-walled cleft in the mountain leading straight out to the golden glory of the bay of storms. Through that rift in the hill romance and the French had sailed in as long ago as the first years of the seventeenth century; and though the French sailed out again, romance remained behind to dwell forever in Port Royal’s placid basin.

As our train neared Port Royal, long ago called Annapolis, and rolled along the southern shore of the basin, the beauty of the scene increased, thanks largely to the brilliant effects of cloud-masses and an ardent setting sun. The mountain seemed high, its top not being clearly defined, and the wild scenery near Bear River, where the train passes over a high curved trestle, became doubly striking in the sunset lights. Every few rods a blue heron flew from the sands and flapped away from the train. Marvelous flocks of peep rose, careened, flashing like silver, wheeled, and alighted once more on good feeding-ground. Shadows nestled amongst the weirs running out at short intervals from the shore ; darkness began to gather in the valleys and the woods, and soon we reached Annapolis with its ancient earthworks, and found something akin to comfort in its best but unpretentious inn.

It was on the afternoon of the next day, our second on the peninsula, that 1 saw Blomidon, — saw it first from the Kentville slopes, and again, after we had followed down the dashing, dancing Gaspereaux for several miles, from the heights above Wolfville. The Gaspereaux Valley had been charming by reason of its wooded hillsides, in parts holding the river closely between dark banks of spruce and fir, but later giving it freer range through well-tilled meadows and undulating fields. Evening, heralded by rolling masses of dark clouds, seemed to be upon us, as our horses slowly climbed the steep slope of the Gaspereaux back of Wolfville. The air grew cold, and when we reached the crest of the ridge a strong wind wrestled with us, and carried a chill from Fundy to the very marrow of our bones. Then it was that, gaining the edge of the northern slope, we suddenly saw the marvelous panorama of the Cornwallis Valley, North Mountain, Blomidon, the Basin of Minas, the Acadian dike lands including Grand Prd, and the mouth of the Gaspereaux, spread before us under the sunset lights and the emphatic contrasts of speeding wind clouds.

The tide was out, and miles of basin bottom lay red and shining in the sunlight. The dike lands were intensely green, the sands, or mud, all shades of terra cotta, the shallows strange tones of purple, and the deeper waters varying shades of blue. Color ran riot in meadow, mud, and bay. Above and beyond all, directly in front of us, miles away, at the extremity of a grand sweep of shore which curved towards it from our left, was a dark red bluff crowned with evergreens. Its profile was commanding. From the edge of its forest it fell one quarter of the way to the sea in a line perfectly perpendicular. Then, relenting a little, the line sloped to the waves at a gentler angle, but one still too steep for human foot to ascend. This was Blomidon, simple, majestic, inspiring.

The distant northern shore of the basin was plainly indicated by a line of blue mountains, the Cobequid range, and we knew that between us and its rugged coast-line the mighty, pent-up tides of Fundy raced each day and night into the comparative calm of Minas, and spread themselves there over the red sands and up to the dikes which the Acadian peasants had built round about Grand Pre. After receiving the image of Blomidon into the deepest corners of our memories, we looked next at Grand Pré, and, looking, gave up all previous impressions of it gained from Longfellow’s poem. The Grand Prd which he imagined and painted without ever visiting the Gaspereaux country is not the dike land of reality. Both are charming, but around the vast level of green grass which lay below us there were no whispering pines or hemlocks, no suggestion of the primeval forest. To the low, undulating or level fields which bordered the Gaspereaux, the Pereaux, the Grand Habitant, and other rivers of this region, the Acadian farmers added by degrees marsh lands naturally swept by the tides, but from which they carefully and permanently excluded all saltwater. Longfellow’s picture is of salt meadows flooded annually by the sea, and surrounded by a forest country, romantic in character. We saw forests far away on Blomidon, and back of us in the upper reaches of the Gaspereaux; but near the Basin of Minas and the dike country of Grand Pré the apple-tree and the willow are, in this generation at least, kings among trees. To flood Grand Pre with salt water would be to carry ruin and desolation to its fertile acres, and sorrow to the hearts of its thrifty owners. Its best lands are worth four hundred dollars an acre, and require no enrichment. When the sea floods them, as it occasionally does, owing to the breaking of a dike, three years are required to bring the land back to even fair condition.

The next afternoon a pair of Kentville horses carried us speedily towards Blomidon. We crossed the Grand Habitant or Cornwallis River at Kentville, and then followed the general direction of the shore of the basin until we had crossed in order the Habitant, Canard, and Pereaux rivers, and gained the North Mountain. Striking a ravine in its side, we ascended a well-made road to the summit at a point called “the Look-off.” I know of no other hill or mountain which gives the reward that this one does in proportion to the effort required to climb it. Many a rough White Mountain scramble up three thousand feet yields nothing like the view which this hill affords. The Nova Scotian glories in the fact that from it he can see into seven counties, and count prosperous farms by the score, and appletrees by the hundred thousand.

From the shores of the basin westward through the valley between the North and South Mountain well-tilled farm lands reach towards Annapolis as far as the eye can see. It is a patchwork of which the provinces are and may well be proud, — that quilted landscape, with grain and potatoes, orchard and hayfield. featherstitched in squares by zigzag pole fences. Were this the whole or the essence of the view from the Look-off, it would not be worth writing about, for farm lands by themselves, or with a frame of rounded hills, are neither novel nor inspiring. That which stirs, in this view, is the mingling of Minas Basin, its blue water and dim farther shores, with Grand Pré and the other dike lands and with the red bluffs of Pereaux. The patchwork and hills serve only as contrast, background, filling, to the pronounced features of sparkling sea, bright green meadows cleft from the sea by dikes, terra-cotta sands and bluffs, and the forest-covered ridge leading towards halfconcealed Blomidon, the monarch of this gay and sunlit realm. It was dreamlike to see the tide creeping in over the shining red sand and ooze, and changing their vivid tints by blending with them its own colors to make tones strange both to sea and sand. The wide expanses of mud left bare by the tide told in their own way the story of the Acadian dike builder. No man of the soil could see the riches exposed daily to view without wishing to keep them for his own tillage. Even the man of today, who lay beside me on the turf of the Look-off, told of his visions of a new dike many times greater than any that the simple Acadian farmer had built, and which is some day to snatch a million dollars’ worth of land from Minas Basin, and make it into a part of the prosperous Nova Scotia of the future. Listening to the dike builder, and wondering at the absence in this exquisite place of the hotels, pushing railways, dainty steamers, and other machinery which at home would long ago have been applied to give this spot to the madding crowd, it suddenly came over me that this was not apart of Ihe United States, but a sleepy corner of Greater Britain. Even the great dike must be built on paper in London before it intrudes on Minas Basin.

The next time that I fully realized Nova Scotia’s bondage was two days later, in Halifax, on Sunday morning. It was a warm day at best, hut when we had fairly pelted up a narrow street set on the earth at an angle best adapted to tobogganing, and gained the gateway of a chapel yard, all nature seemed melting. The hot air was moved, not by a vulgar breeze, but by the tramp of military men, and by the scampering of women and children who gazed upon the military men. and grew redder in the light reflected from their uniforms.

There was morning service in the garrison chapel, and the redcoats were out in force to attend it. They marched lightly, quickly, and with an elastic step pleasant to see. They were good-looking boys, as a rule, and when seated, hundreds strong, in the wooden pews of the chapel, they looked tidy and good enough to be mothers’ own boys safe at home in the wayside chapels of the old country. Above them, in the walls, were set a score of marble tablets commemorative of British officers who had died in or near Halifax. The ages of these fallen heroes seemed to range from seventeen to about twenty-four. No wonder England is a power on the earth, when her fighters begin life in childhood, and her statesmen keep on ruling until near fourscore and ten.

The red-coated youths joined heartily in the Church service, singing, responding, and listening attentively to the sermon, which was manly and direct. A young officer read the lessons, and when a cornet added its ringing tones to the choir the Church militant seemed complete in its equipment. It was when the prayer for the Queen and the Prince of Wales was reached that I suddenly realized the full meaning of the scene which surrounded me. This was a garrison church, owned by a foreign power and occupied by foreign soldiers. These soldiers were not Nova Scotians, hut Englishmen, planted here as much to watch the Nova Scotians as to serve any other purpose. I could not help remembering the time, long ago, when Massachusetts dispensed with redcoats, and in the very act of driving them away from her coast, gained new life which has animated her to this day. Nova Scotia men are good enough and true enough to defend Nova Scotia soil.

When the redcoats sang “ God save the Queen,”at the close of their service, I joined with them; hut the words I knew, and which I sang as vigorously as prudence and courtesy permitted, made no reference to their distant sovereign. Still, the tune was the same, we were brothers in music, and there was no shadow of unkindness in my feeling towards the manly soldiers as we trooped out of chapel together. While they formed in ranks on the green, I met and chatted with their commanding officer. Suddenly the twelve-o’clock gun was tired from the citadel above us. The general started visibly, but almost at the same moment his betrayal of nervousness was covered by the band, which struck up “ Ta-ra-ra, boom de ay,” putting spring into the soldiers’ heels, and broad grins upon the spectators’ faces.

The next day, after a little patient pulling of red tape, I gained admission to the great citadel of Halifax, popularly supposed to be the key to Its defenses. The works were in poor repair ; the guns in sight were old in style, and not of a calibre to alarm an enemy’s ships in the outer harbor ; but the equipment was amply sufficient to keep Halifax itself in order, or to deal effectively with an insurgent army attempting to approach the city. Against the attack of a strong foreign enemy the citadel would be of use mainly as a refuge for the women and children of Halifax. The real defenses of the city are earthworks in or near the harbor, and an elaborate system of mines and torpedoes underlying the channel.

The citadel has one unquestioned merit which all the world, red or blue, can enjoy: it gives from its ramparts, or from the open grassy slopes just outside the bastions, an excellent view of Halifax and all its picturesque surroundings. This view and the winning hospitality of the Halifax people were fresh and bright in our memories as we took the Intercolonial train northward on Tuesday morning. Outside the train, scanty forests growing over a country which appeared to have been bombarded with rocks, offered no encouragement to an inquisitive gaze. Inside, motley humanity invented many ways of distracting us in more senses than one. Salvationists sat three in a seat and played concertinas ; a company of maroons, the big negroes of the country, disported in their best clothes; dozens of young Christian Endeavor delegates hobnobbed together; while some Nova Scotia militiamen, by their calf-like antics, made us think more kindly of tbe British garrison left behind. If the scenery failed to charm, the names of places did not fail to astonish us. Acadie, Tracadie, Shubenacadie, rang in my ears for days, and so did the less harmonious refrain of Tignish, Antigonish and Merigomish. When I heard of Pugwash the climax seemed attained. It did not seem possible that any swain could go a-courting a girl from Pugwash.

The day wore on. Names became places and faded back to names again, and then it began to rain. It was in the rain that we first saw the hills of Cape Breton looming up on the further side of the Gut of Canso. We had expected to be impressed by this strait and its bold shores, but its proportions as seen through slowly falling mist were disappointing. Had we not known what it was, it would have seemed undeniably commonplace.

It was about three o’clock on tbe afternoon of August 1 that we crossed the Strait of Canso and first touched Cape Breton soil. A boy with baskets of freshly picked cultivated strawberries welcomed us to the island. Our mental calendar rolled back from August to June, and we enjoyed those berries as though they were the first of the season. Each berry marked a mile of wet forest scenery, and by the time they were gone we were well on our way to the Bras d’Or lakes. From 6.45 A. M. to 5.15 p. M. is a long day’s ride in a Nova Scotia car, and we sighed with relief when the train rolled slowly over the seven-span iron bridge at Grand Narrows, and then slid away up the shore of the Bras d’Or towards Sydney, leaving us to take a funny little steamer for Baddeek.

Cape Breton is shaped a good deal like a lobster’s claw open towards the north, and this claw holds in its grasp the grotesquely irregular arm of the sea known as the Bras d’Or lakes. Coming by rail from the Strait of Canso to Grand Narrows, we had given up. or rather avoided, a trip by steamer up the whole length of the Big Bras d’Or. Had the afternoon been pleasant the voyage would have been charming, for the placid inland sea, with its picturesque shores now close in view, and again below the horizon, is one of the chief beauties of Cape Breton. As the afternoon was shrouded in tine rain, the Big Bras d’Or would have been no more attractive than any other chilly fog-bank, and the voyage through it would have consumed all the remaining hours of the day. As matters stood, we had two hours of daylight before us ; the rain had almost ceased ; an occasional gleam of golden light wandered over the shores of the Little Bras d’Or ; and we were about to embark on a steamer which would take us through a portion of the lakes where both of tbe hilly and picturesque shores would be uninterruptedly in sight.

Had we seen this charming landscape immediately after bidding farewell to Chocorua, it would have failed to make the strong impression upon us which as a matter of fact it did produce. So much of Nova Scotia between Yarmouth and Halifax, and so nearly the whole of the country between Halifax and Grand Narrows, had been of a kind which every one sleeps through or scowls at in the States that the Bras d’Or was a paradise in comparison : a lake, yet the sea with its restless jellyfish ; the sea, yet a landlocked basin surrounded by graceful hills, trim farm lands, and dark forests of spruce and balsam. Many of tbe hills, rising from the water with resolute lines, wore the dignity of mountains ; and so perfect were their proportions that bays only half a mile in length often seemed like far-reaching thoroughfares worthy of a voyager’s exploration. Gradually the Grand Narrows bridge faded away, until it looked like a line of tatting work against the gray sky. Then the most distant hills northward rose into wellrounded summits, and at last two noble headlands invited us to turn westward between them, and to approach Baddeck, masked by an island, spruce-grown, heronhaunted, and capped by a tiny lighthouse whose gleaming eye now emphasized the gathering gloom.

The traveler who expects anything picturesque in an American village, town, or city, whether it be seen from the sea, a lake, a plain, or a hilltop, will in nine cases out of ten be wholly disappointed. Box-shaped wooden warehouses, shops, dwellings, and churches, whether arranged in parallelograms or hurled together in true Marblehead fashion, whether painted white, pink, green, yellow, or red, or not painted at all, generally lack the power of pleasing the eye. They are cheap, comfortless in appearance, temporary in nature, and essentially vulgar in design. Baddeck, as we anticipated, consisted of the usual conglomeration of wooden buildings, rickety wharves, and country roads ; and when we crept round the island, and saw it lank and gawky before us, we felt as though we had seen it many times before. It made for us a good point of departure, and as such we used it, for a few walks into its thickets after birds and plants, and for long trips to the Margaree rivers and northward to Cape Smoky.

We took our first walk that evening, soon after landing and getting settled at the Dunlops’. During that walk we learned several distinguishing characteristics of Baddeck. In the first place, Baddeck’s streets are not lighted. In the second place, what in the darkness appear to be sidewalks are only plank coverings above deep gutters or brook beds which border the way; and as the continuity of this platform depends upon the personal whim of the abutter, it is not surprising that when Rory’s sidewalk ceased we fell into Torquil’s part of the ditch. The soil of Baddeck is so composed of clay and other substances that rain either runs to the Bras d’Or, or stands till heaven takes pity on it and draws it skyward again. The third fact we learned that night was that cows in Baddeck all wear bells, sleep in the highways, and are never allowed inside a fence. Whenever and wherever we turned, a sudden “ tinkle-tankle ” would show that we had nearly fallen over a prostrate cow: therefore, after half an hour of darkness, ditches, and cows, we returned to the hotel and its comforts ; but all night long the cowbells tinkled through our dreams.

For the Margaree drive we took three days, starting from Baddeck early on Thursday, August 3, in a top buggy behind a six-year-old horse named Jim. The first day we drove twenty-six miles, the second twenty-two, and the third ten, fortunately catching a steamer at Whycocomagh, and so coming back to Baddeck alive, and with Jim still able to feel the whip. We had been told that the Margaree country was entrancing; but when the trip was over we had reached the conclusion, afterward confirmed by a Cape Breton veteran, that salmon had first drawn the husbands to the Margaree and made them enthusiastic about it, and that later, when the wives invaded the region, they had been taught to find consolation in the pretty scenery. In our three days’ trip we found but two spots which in the White Mountains would be deemed worthy of special notice. One of these was Loch o’ Law, and the other Loch Ainslie. We came to the former near the close of our first day’s drive. Worn and weary with flogging Jim, and insisting twice each minute on his return to the middle of the deeply rutted and often dangerously washed road, I had lost all interest in everything save the dim prospect of food and bed, when suddenly I saw the gleam of water directly before us, and the next moment we came out of the woods upon the shore of a long, narrow lake held close to the heart of lofty hills. Our road followed the western margin of the tarn, and the dark forest which overhung us made premature twilight for us to jog through. Beyond the lake, on its eastern side, three impressive hills stood shoulder to shoulder, one of rock, one of turf, one of forest. They were so steep, it seemed as though only goats could find a foothold upon their flanks. Between the hill of rock and the hill of turf lay a great gorge, overhung by cliffs and full of shadows. The hills themselves were bathed in warm sunlight, and the water was partly in shadow and partly in light. A mother loon and her smart little chick were swimming down the lake, and seven or eight great blue kingfishers flew up and down its borders, sounding over and over again their watchman’s rattles. This was Loch o’ Law, a gem worthy of its rare setting and of its place near the heart of Cape Breton. From it the escaping waters rush dow nward to help form the Northeast Margaree River, and the road we were following led us down with the stream to the pleasant intervale where geese wander in flocks up and down the roads, and salmon swim proudly in the bright waters of their favorite river.

From Northeast Margaree to Margaree Forks, and from the Forks up the Southwest Margaree to Loch Ainslie, the scenery was not equal to the task of dispossessing Jim of the foremost place in our minds. Jim shied, stumbled, sweated, until we thought disintegration was near at hand, and, worse than all. required unremitting guidance to keep him in the road. Had the natural beauties of the country been as great as we expected, I doubt not that Jim would have tipped us into the swift-flowing waters of the Southwest Margaree long before Loch Ainslie was reached. Had Jim been the horse he might have been, we should have enjoyed much more the pretty glimpses of moving water, the deep pools tempting a passing cast, the meadows thick with spikes of splendid orchids, and the rounded hillsides thickly clad with woods.

Loch Ainslie is a beautiful sheet of water, covering in all about twenty-live square miles, and surrounded by good farm land running hack upon high hills. Highlanders settled the country, and their descendants, who still own the farms, are eager, like so many of our New England farmers, to sell their places, and try life under less picturesque but more profitable conditions. We were welcomed to a Highlander’s home, and told where we could fish to advantage from three o’clock till dark. Long before tea time we had caught more trout than we could eat for supper and breakfast, and by nightfall Loch Ainslie had impressed itself upon us as the most beautiful part of the Margaree country. This it did mainly at sunset, when, from near a grove of lofty pines, we watched the most delicate tints come and go in the sky, on the distant western hills, and in the fair lake itself, with its miles of rippling water blushing and paling in sympathy with Ihe heavens. While the sunset lasted we thought more of color than of form in our beautiful surroundings ; but after the passing away of orange, yellow, pale green, violet, and finally blue itself, we were soothed by the lovely contour of the beach, the silhouettes of the pines, the sweep of hill crest, the pallid lake, and the mystery of the unfathomable sky.

Next day, August 5, we drove from Loch Ainslie to Whycocomagh, called by the natives “ Hogomah,” and there, with a sigh of relief, put Jim, the buggy, and ourselves upon a steamer, and returned to Baddeek without further weariness of spirit. This part of the Bras d’Or is like the rest of the great labyrinth of inland sea. charming at every point.

At times so narrow as to be more river than lake, it winds around high wooded hills, curves into countless bays, and then expands proudly to meet the Little Bras d’Or at Baddeck.

Early on the following Monday morning, having in the mean time eaten wild strawberries picked in the larch swamps and spruce thickets back of Baddeck, we set out for Cape Smoky. Theoretically we were going on foot, but it so chanced that the kindest and most entertaining of friends found it convenient to carry us eighteen miles northward to Englishtown, on St. Anne’s Bay. Sullen clouds hung over Bras d’Or, as we drove for a mile or two along its shore before entering the woods and beginning the long and easy ascent to the watershed between lake and bay. Gradually the sky assumed a more threatening aspect, and when at last the height of land was reached, and we saw before us St. Anne’s Bay, narrow at first among the trees, and growing broad as it met the sea and faced boldly northward towards Newfoundland, huge black clouds rolled eastward, pouring cold rain upon mountain, bay, and road.

We drove faster as the tingling drops splashed upon us. Dashing through dark spruces, spinning down steep grades, round sudden curves, over frail bridges which spanned foaming brooks, and then out into the open, we found the bay on our left, and beyond it. showing dimly through the storm, a large mountain. It was Baraçoir (or Smith’s) Mountain, and from its left North River emerged to empty into a broad arm of the bay, while behind it, further north, the Baracoir River, winding through primeval forests, flowed eastward to reach the sea ahead of us outside of the mouth of St. Anne’s Bay. Soon we saw Englishtown a mile or two in front of us, on the eastern side of the bay, and then we noticed, apparently running from shore to shore, a narrow white bar which separated bay from sea. Now the clouds began to break and roll away, and far, far beyond the bar we could see headlands of various degrees of dignity and grandeur looking seaward. The last of them, very distant, very high, cloud-capped, with a front like Blomidon’s steepest face, filled us with a yearning to reach it and to worship at its mighty shrine. It was Smoky, the monarch of the northern sea.

Glorious yellow sunshine poured down upon Baracoir Mountain and the heaving waters of St. Anne’s Bay as we entered the little fishing village of Englishtown. The worst of the storm was passing beyond us, and myriad perpendicular lines of falling rain were ruled from sea to sky across the north. With latent impatience we rested, ate, and said good-by to our friends. Then our feet tramped the muddy road, our noses sniffed the atmosphere of drying cod on the flakes, our ears listened to the song of the juncos, and our eyes gazed forward, northward, toward Smoky. The head of the great cape was cloud-capped, but this made it seem all the move heaven-reaching.

Turning to the left from the road, we descended to the shore of the bay, and found ourselves just opposite the long white cobblestone bar which we had seen afar off. Between us and its tip lay a deep channel which connected St. Anne’s Bay with the ocean. On the shore was a boat, and an impatient ferryman stood by it watching us descend. “ Where are you going t ” he asked, his keen eyes searching us. “Northward,” I answered. “Like the wild geese,” he said, with a mocking laugh, and pushed off into the current. He was Torquil McLean, well known to all who travel on the North Shore, and holding in his face many a suggestion of the Highland stock from which he is descended, and the wild north country in which he lives, and its counterpart in which his race was moulded. His strong arms soon brought us to the bar, upon which two wagons, several people, and a sheep were awaiting his arrival.

A road, scarcely perceptible at first glance, lay along the bar towards the beginning of the North Shore country into which we were venturing. Between us and the north pole there was nothing legally definable as a hotel. This vague track over the cobblestone beach led to the mainland, and then, past farm and fisherman’s hut, thirty-four miles to Ingonish Bay, and thirty-six miles more to Cape North. Our lodging-places must be the simple homes of Gaelic-speaking Presbyterians, in whose eyes we should be foreigners, not to say heathen. Letters from James Dunlop, of Baddeck, addressed to various members of Clan McDonald, were our principal hope of hospitality. The dimly marked road and the cobblestone reef, wheeling, shrieking terns, pounding waves from the northern ocean, and a sight of new and strange plants combined to thrill us with a sense of charming novelty and wildness. It was still early in the afternoon, and as we did not care how far we advanced, having already been carried as far as we originally planned to walk that day, we strolled slowly along the bar, enjoying the mere fact of living.

Among the plants growing upon the loosely packed, egg-shaped stones was one quite unfamiliar and of most uncommon appearance. Its succulent and glaucous leaves were bluish-gray in color, and set thickly upon prostrate stems which radiated like devilfish tentacles from a common centre. The leaves diminished rapidly in size as they left the root, and at the extremity of each stem there were uncoiling clusters of exquisite flowers somewhat resembling those of the forget-me-not. Flowers fully developed were delicate blue, while buds and half-opened blossoms were pink. It seemed to me that I never saw a plant more perfectly in harmony with its surroundings. Lifting no surface for the storm winds to seize upon, it nevertheless covered much ground. Its delicate leaf tints sympathized with those of the polished stones and sea-bleached driftwood upon which it grew, yet its flowers drew from sky and sea a more pronounced beauty of color sufficient to allure the butterfly and attract the bee. The botanical name of this charming plant is Mertensia maritima, though why Gray’s manual calls its flowers white is more than the Cape Breton plant can answer.

As we neared the mainland, stunted spruces and firs grew more abundant and bolder, flowers more numerous, and the road plainer and less rocky. Birds other than the weird terns flew before us, or sang to us from their cover. When we reached the higher ground, the sense of novelty and isolation faded, and the world seemed more like its old southern self. The road ran along the shore as closely as it could without much winding, and as we progressed northward we left St. Anne’s Bay behind us, and gained a view southeastward along the coast towards Sydney and the entrance to the Bras d’Or. Still the beauty of St. Anne’s followed us. for the glimpses which we had now and then of its slowly diminishing shores were of sturdy mountains with forests reaching to the waves, valleys in which the shades of evening were gathering, and farm lands upon which the short thick grass lay like velvet in the slanting rays of the sun. The view eastward was more rugged. Strong faces of rock turned towards the sea and fought the waves which had crumbled them, and torn away all but the hardest cliffs and ledges. One long finger of rock reached into the ocean, and pointed to a group of islands which may once have been a part of it. They were not green isles with sandy margins, but huge angular masses of rock with high cliffs, under which storms might rage for centuries without dragging down the grim ramparts.

We passed a few farms, with houses and barns standing far back from the road, as is the fashion of these Highlanders, but most of our way lay between pastures, mowing-fields with short grass partly cropped by the scythes, and woodland where black and white spruces and balsam firs grew densely together. Upon a meadow bordering a salt creek a flock of yellowlegs were whistling noisily, and back and forth over them kingfishers were flying with their usual cry. As the sun drew near the hills, we stopped at a house and blacksmith shop and presented the first of our letters. William McDonald lived here, and our request was that he should drive us on our way to Indian River, where, at Angus McDonald’s, we hoped to spend the night. William had only a two-wheeled sulky, which could scarcely carry three ; so it was a relief to all of us when we saw, coming from the bar, a youth in a wagon, driving a sprightly nag at a rattling pace. After a brief conversation in Gaelic, William announced that the youth would take us twelve or fourteen miles up the coast to French River, where we were sure of a good bed at Sandy McDonald’s. A moment later we were packed in, three on a seat, and dashing northward as fast as the pony could tear. The youth would have done credit to a Spartan mother. I never met any one of his age and intelligence who knew so well how not to talk. He answered my questions with the fewest possible words, but asked nothing in return. He knew the names of capes, islands, birds, animals, trees, and many flowers, but it took a separate question to drag each item from him. Meanwhile he kept the horse spinning. We had no time to shiver over holes in bridges; the horse knew his business, and jumped the holes, at least, if be could not jump the whole bridge. Ruts and gullies were ignored, and we learned that, if taken quickly, two ruts and a gully are almost as good as a level.

Twilight was growing upon the earth, and far away over the pale sea the light off Cape Dauphin, on the Ciboux Islands, was flashing its message of mingled hope and warning, when suddenly we plunged into gloom, wheeled around a dizzy curve, and crossed a long iron bridge. Below us a river’s dark waters reflected the waning glory of the sky. This was the Baraçoir, one of the salmon rivers of which we had heard fisherman’s tales at Baddeck. Two miles more brought us to Indian River, and again a great curve and a dash through the woods prepared us for another angle and a sharp descent to a long bridge so full of holes that we felt as though only angels could have kept our pony’s flying feet out of them. A vision of cliffs, deep black pools, and distant mountains with serrated spruce forests against the sunset sky made us determine that Indian River should not be passed on the gallop when we returned from Ingonish, if indeed that happy day ever came.

Darkness having taken full possession of the earth, our charioteer urged his horse to even wilder efforts, and we shot through dim dangers with teeth set and eyes vainly scanning the gloom to see what next impended. It was in this fashion that we tore across a field towards the cliffs, apparently with certain death before us, whirled under a steep bank, and found ourselves on the ocean’s edge, in front of a long, unpainted building, before which, standing or sitting upon the loaded fish flakes, were a dozen or more men. Half an hour later, the telegraph operator at the government office, a mile up the road, ticked to Baddeck the following message given by our Jehu : “ Them Yanks, the man and woman, are at Sandy McDonald’s this night.”

“ Them Yanks,” stiff, stunned, sore, hungry, cold, and petrified with astonishment, stood on Sandy McDonald’s doorstep and silently gazed up and down upon land and sea. Truly they had been cast upon as unique a shelter as this world had ever yet offered them. The long, low house clung upon the edge of the bluff, with only the width of the fish flakes between it and a sharp descent to the ocean. Behind it rolling grass land cut off the west. Southward a line of bold rocky cliffs overhung a narrow beach, upon which the waves broke and cast foam from many fragments of ledge which dotted the shore. Through a similar line of bluffs on the north French River had cut its way. but instead of reaching the ocean directly it was turned aside by a huge cobblestone barrier raised by storms, and so was compelled to flow nearly parallel to the shore for many rods, finally reaching the sea just at the foot of the fish flakes and in front of the house. Eastward and northward, as far as the eye could see, lay the open ocean. The only distance not sky or sea was the broken shore near Cape Dauphin and Point Aconi, which limited the view towards the southeast and south. Just below the fish flakes were several fishermen’s huts, crowded together upon uncertain foundations above high-tide mark. Boats, great tubs for oil, more flakes thickly strewn with split, fish, masses of seaweed and fish heads, big fragments of rock worn round by the waves, oars, sails, ropes, nets, lobster pots, and nameless relics of storm and shore lay in wild confusion at the foot of the bank. All the odors of Billingsgate rose to salute our trembling nostrils, and stronger than all sights and smells came in ceaseless iteration the singing and sobbing of the great waves.

Sandy McDonald gave us a hearty welcome, and ushered us into a cosy parlor. from which opened a tiny bedroom. Simple food, reading by McDonald from a Gaelic Bible, a long breath of ocean air, and the benediction of the stars fitted us for early and profound sleep. It was not until gray dawn that I awakened, and, throwing a blanket over my shoulders, stole to the door and looked out over the sea. The fishermen were already afloat; several boats were a mile from shore, and others, with sails flapping and oars thumping, were working their way towards the east. Across the far horizon lay a long, low bank of white fog. The sun came slowly from it, and looked at the drowsy world with its one red eye. Its light touched each wave as it broke, and through the thin greencombing of the breaker the sun’s glow was rose-colored and exquisitely beautiful. So, too, the rosy light lay in the thin water which ran back across the shining sand, as waves subsided after breaking on the beach. Cape Dauphin and its islands floated as rosy castles in a distant haze, and the bluffs close to me put on soft and alluring tints, soon to be lost, however, as the sun grew clear, and by whiter light robbed the scene of most of its peculiar charm.

It was not until after another period of sweet sleep that we began our walk of fourteen miles from French River over Cape Smoky to Ingonish. The day was warm and clear. Smoky stood up boldly against the north, facing eastward towards the open sea with a front as steep as Blomidon’s, and nearly three times as high. For about two hundred feet above the ocean the mountain’s face was reddish rock; thence for a thousand feet low trees clothed the rampart with soft green. The top, running inland a long distance, appeared to be level, and either wooded or covered with bushes. Between us and Smoky two minor bluffs pointed into the sea; but they were dwarfed by the loftier cape, and served only as milestones to cheer us on our way.

After walking a mile or more we met two men, who addressed us pleasantly, and turned to walk with us on our way. The older of the two was over eighty, and told of his far-away birthplace in the Isle of Lewis. The younger, a man of sixty, was very tall, and saw this world through but one eye. We soon found that it was his son who had been our laconic charioteer the evening before, and as the talk progressed it became evident that Big Rory, as this canny man is called from Baddeck to Cape North, was not in favor of our walking over Smoky, when his horse and wagon could be earning more American dollars by carrying us. We withstood his arguments, however, and enjoyed his flow of genial and intelligent conversation. I felt sure that had Cape Breton been called upon to take an active or courageous part in this world’s doings while Big Rory was young, he would have been a power in her life. True, he is that in a way now, politically ; but provincial politics are so lacking in all that is pure, patriotic, or intelligent that neither Big Rory nor any other strong man has much chance to make head against the undertow of corruption and prejudice.

By noon we had reached one of the last houses on the southern side of Smoky. Here we sought dinner, but found, alas, what too many of the North Shore people live upon, — sour bread, boiled tea, sour milk sweetened and watered, and berries. Our hosts could probably have added salt fish. eggs, and oatmeal porridge, had they felt like it. But we made the best meal we could off the food offered, and asked for no additions, feeling that what we ate might be seriously diminishing their own dinners.

Upon rather insufficient rations, therefore, we advanced against Smoky, and began the ascent by following inland a noisy stream which flowed seaward along the mountain’s southern border. After carrying us deep into the forest, which was by far the most lofty and vigorous growth of trees we had thus far seen on the island, the road crossed the torrent and turned seaward again, ascending by easy grades through a dense birch growth. On the whole, the road was well made, and showed skill on the part of those who planned it. When we reached its highest point, we found the top still unconquered ; so, striking through bushes and over steep ledges, we clambered to the undisputed summit, and there paused to survey the panorama below us.

It was assuredly a magnificent view, and one which will in time lead many feet to the ledges now mainly enjoyed by berry-pickers, bears included. To the west lay barrens similar to those which are said to cover the interior of this part of Cape Breton. Rocks, bushes, bare ledges, and hollows filled with sphagnum or pools of amber water were the prevailing elements in a country which now and then sustained a patch of low spruces or a larger body of mixed woods. The east was ocean, limitless and blue. But at our feet were the wild details of the great precipice which fell away from us twelve hundred feet to the waves. Over it several large black birds were sailing, and the first croak which came echoing up the cliffs from them disclosed their identity : they were not crows, but ravens. I had been told that when I reached Smoky I must keep an eye open for ravens ; and true enough, here they were.

Our view northward was limited by the fact that the foreground was filled by the great mass of mountain which we were next to cross in order to look down upon Ingonish. Nevertheless, a wide expanse of ocean showed in the northeast, and the heads of distant mountains crowded together in the northwest. Between sea and mountains we could catch one glimpse of a nearer headland, with a church steeple rising from a village at its heel. It was the southern view which held us enchanted even when we felt that we must pause no longer. From the foot of Smoky back to the far seclusion of St. Anne’s Bay the cliff-lined coast we had traversed lay in profile before us. Headland after headland pointed eastward, and valley after valley wound back among the hills and forests. From St. Anne’s Bay the coast turned eastward and ran away into distance, coming out boldly at Cape Dauphin and Point Aconi, and retreating again at the mouth of the Bras d’Or and the entrance to Sydney harbor.

Later in the afternoon Smoky gave us one more view, which, by reason of marvelous lights and shadows in the sky, was even more beautiful than any other picture which Cape Breton or Minas Basin revealed to us. We had descended many a steep slope, and passed through a fine primeval forest where lofty beeches, yellow birches, hemlocks, and spruces presented much the same aspects which I love so well to see on the Lost Trail. We had rounded one shoulder of the mountain where the edge of the road had slipped down four or five hundred feet into a brook bed, leaving only room for a wagon to pass between the unguarded edge of the ravine and the gravel bank which rose from the road on its other side. A horse having already plunged down there, I, even on my own feet, did not like the sensation of passing this spot. When I heard that the mail carrier went by it in his sulky or sleigh night after night, summer and winter, I wished that the highway commissioners for this district could be compelled to travel with him on his dangerous way. Soon after leaving this place, the road came out on an open hillside commanding an uninterrupted view of all that part of Cape Breton lying north of Cape Smoky. The coast in profile extended northward until its details were lost in distance. Bays, headlands, islands, sandy beaches, lighthouses, cosy villages, passing ships, sailing ravens, and sparkling waves shone on the right, while on the left mountain after mountain, all heavily wooded, though showing many a bare cliff or sculptured summit, filed away from foreground to distance in mighty ranks. A huge mass of storm cloud, sent down from the Bay of St. Lawrence, was sweeping proudly across the sky from west to east. At some points it was inky black and quivering with lightning, at others it was white or gray, while on the edges of the thunderheads golden reflections from the hidden sun gleamed as the banners of the cloud army which slowly spread across the plains of blue. In the north there arose the dim outline of a high mountain. We knew that it must be very near to Cape North, and we fancied that from its summit Newfoundland’s gloomy crags might be seen across the sea.

One of the nearer mountains attracted our notice by its strange outline. As it lay against a background of black cloud its profile of naked rock was sharply cut, and high up on its precipitous face a slender column of stone projected from the mass, as a ship’s figurehead leans forward from the bows. It was like a human form poised over a black abyss, yet lifting its weak arms towards heaven. From among the nearer mountains a river could be seen winding towards the sea. It came along the foot of Smoky, spread into a landlocked basin, yet found a narrow channel for itself between a lighthouse and a bar, and so gained the outer bay. This outer bay was cut in twain by a slender rocky promontory, with picturesque outlines, high cliffs, and deep clefts in its side. On the northern margin of the farther bay was Ingonish village, and along the western border of the nearer bay—on the bar, in fact, or close to it and the lighthouse— was another hamlet, called Ingonish South Bay. It was to this nearer village at our feet that we looked with most interest, for it was our ultima Thule.

Frank Bolles.