From Blomidon to Smoky, and other papers

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FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY.

Against the Bay of Fundy, witli 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 wellwooded 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.

I. By Land

The breath of fire floated in the air, making it hazy, softening the mountain contours, giving a wicked look to the sea, and filling me, through its perfume, with the same feeling of unrest that the moose and caribou have as they feel the smoke of burning forests tingling in their nostrils.

Looking inland, I saw the hills marshaled along the river, rank behind rank, with their relative distances clearly defined by the smoke. The mercury was above 90° Fahrenheit, and mountain climbing was not to be thought of. Middle Head, seen across the waves, suggested cool breezes, and towards its lean, half -grassy, halfrocky finger, pointing ever eastward, we took our way. From Mr. Baker's, half a mile of sandy road runs northward parallel with an ideally beautiful beach. Then the road bends to the left, inland, while the beach curves to the right, seaward, rising soon into sandy banks, which in turn change to sculptured cliffs at whose foot the sea murmurs.

Terns with black-tipped wings skimmed close to the restless waves, and over the fretted sand where the ripples had left the marks of their lips. No one walked upon the road where man had scratched together badly the same sand which nature had made perfect by the tides.

When I looked at Ingonish beach as it was, silent, lonely, serene, and pure, I thought what it might some day be made if fashionable men and women, on pleasure bent, chanced to discover it and to feel the thrill of its sun-tempered tide, which is as mild as that of their favorite but more southern shores. Now, at least, the absence of hotels where such men and women

INGONISff, BY LAND AND SEA. 41

might be fed and put to bed, if by chance the sea or their own feet cast them upon these distant sands, makes it certain that they will not come to banish Eden by their presence.

Between the sand beach and the road there rises a massive wall of rounded stones, varying in size from a goose egg to a human skull. Can waves alone have raised such a dike ? The same question came to me as I studied a similar wall running along the seaward side of the bar which well nigh makes St. Anne's Bay a lake, and Torquil McLean's ferry a superfluity instead of a somewhat malodorous joy. Perhaps the fact that often, in winter, the ice comes stealing across from Newfoundland and the seas that lie beyond it, and packs itself against St. Anne's bar and all the north coast of Cape Breton, may explain these walls. The thrust of the ice could scour the shallows for miles, and bear along loose stones to the first beach whose sloping face would receive them. The density of the arrangement of these stones, and the abruptness of the front which they present to the sea, point to ice action rather than to that of waves alone. The wall is so high that those walking or driving along the road cannot see the beach, while those bathing cannot see the country inland. Shut in between shingle and sea, we walked the length of the sand, and then climbed to the top of the bluffs of Middle Head.

The evening before, while watching meteors from the beach, we had seen the sky above Middle Head suddenly lighted up by a bright fire. It lasted ten or fifteen minutes, then died away so quickly that we felt sure no building could have been destroyed. Now, on the narrow path leading along the edge of the cliffs, we met three men. They bowed and touched their caps with the smiling politeness characteristic of most of the natives, Gaelic or Irish. I asked them what and where the fire had been ; and in a few words they said that Rory This had bought the right to cut grass on Sandy That's land, but that after the hay was made a dispute arose as to the price ; so the hay had been burned to quiet the trouble. I confess I could not reason out the process by which either Rory who had labored, or Sandy who had owned the grass, could find comfort in putting match to the hay.

Some of the rock which supported Sandy's scorched hayfield, and which formed portions of the cliffs of Middle Head, contrasted strikingly with the prevailing red syenite of the Ingonish region. It was white ; not, however, like newly fallen snow, but like that which this world has somewhat soiled. Gypsum, or " plaster," as Cape Breton calls it, occurs in many places on the Bras d'Or and along the north coast. It suffers much more from the action of water and frost than the harder rocks surrounding it, so that where it appears on the surface there are sure to be odd depressions in the soil, " sink holes," into which earth and trees have settled ; or, in cliff faces, deep hollows, coves, or caverns. The path along Middle Head follows closely the trend of the shore, and from it we found ourselves looking down into the most suggestive little cove that smugglers would care to own or story-writers to dream over. Its opening to the sea was narrow, and all its walls were high and steep, yet it had a tiny sand beach where a boat could land easily even if storm waves beat angrily on the stern cliffs outside.

About halfway out on the Head we came upon a spring, — a cup-shaped hollow in the mud, filled with sun-warmed water, — which tempted us to rest near it under the low pines and spruces, where Cape Smoky could be seen across the bay, its richly toned cliffs wonderfully worn by waves, and its lofty head resting in the haze that gives the mountain promontory its name. Its outer point, which cuts in twain waves unchecked from the Grand Banks, is called "the Bill of Smoky." From this point back to the Ingonish light the syenite crags rise supreme above waves or ice. Near the lighthouse the lines of Smoky grow more gentle."

The forest, which above the Bill is but a narrow line next the sky, slopes downward to the placid water inside the bar, and rolls on westward to join other expanses of spruce and birch, hemlock and maple, which clothe the mountains and fill the river valley with soft foliage. While dreamily watching this fair northern picture, as it quivered in the heat of a half -tropical day, we were startled by a sudden cry which came from the waves far below. Then a man, with a coil of rope on his arm, passed us, and went cautiously to the edge of the precipice, over which he peered and made signals. Thoughts of smugglers, of hidden wines brought by night from St. Pierre, of a discovery by the smugglers that we knew of their landing-place, and finally of the consequences of their discovery, floated through our minds, already saturated with the romantic elements of Ingonish scenery and life. Then more men came, and passed. They too crept to the edge and looked into the dizzy waves beneath. One of them lowered the rope over the cliff, and seemed to be trying to lasso something many feet below. Our curiosity prevailed over our timidity, and we drew near to the edge of the rock. The vision of smuggled champagne faded, and in its place was put the truth : that a sheep had gone over the cliff to a narrow sheK more than halfway down to the sea, and that these men were trying to rescue him alive, while a boy in a boat tossed by waves below shouted advice to them.

Middle Head, and many a mile of coast north of it, is the home of the raven, or " big crow," as the Ingonish people call him. Close to the smuggler's cove a long, ragged point juts out from the cliffs. At its extremity huge masses of broken rock lie in the wash of the tide. As we passed this point, I saw an uncanny shape squatted upon its outer rock. It was a bird, web-footed, gaunt, black, vulture - headed, yet with a sac, a hideous skinny object, fitted like a pelican's pouch beneath its beak. A native passing said it was a " shag," which meant nothing to me until I found that " shag " and " cormorant " were two equally expressive names for this same nightmarish bird of rock and wave. I crept out upon the point, first skulking behind wild rose bushes and goldenrod, and then coasting down a sandy slope, out of sight of the spectre I was stalking. Gaining the water's edge, I clambered along among huge rocks upon which seaweeds grew and trailed their fingers in the tide, and so came nearer and nearer to the shag. Suddenly I looked up as a huge shadow swept over me, and saw, black and big against the hot sky, a passing bird which watched me with keen eyes. Growing from the rocks which overhung me was a hunchbacked pine, the sport of every mocking wind that harried this rough coast, and in its bent branches sat five ravens. They croaked, but did not fly, satisfied to watch me as I squirmed over the rocks towards the black beast with a throat sac. In coloring and shape they were like crows, yet I knew they were not crows ; something in the shape of the head was different; they did not treat me as crows would have done. I felt that they were strangers.

When I reached the last rock which could by any chance shield my body from the cormorant, I raised my head very slowly until my eyes came upon a level with the rock's upper surface. About twenty feet away, clasping with its hideous feet the last rock left naked by the tide, sat the shag. It seemed to me that it might be a bittern which, having offended against the gods, had been condemned to leave its beloved meadows and thickets, whispering rushes and perfumed grasses, in order to pass ages upon the shores of a sobbing ocean in which it should find no peace and no abiding-place. Its garb looked as sackcloth and ashes might well look after a thorough soaking in salt water. When it craned upwards its skinny neck and panted, it reached the climax of its loathsomeness, for the livid sac pulsated under its distressed breathing. I had watched the horrid fish-eater long enough, so, rising to my full lieiglit, I had the satisfaction of seeing the monster shrink into itself with fear, turn its ugly countenance seaward, and then flap away over the hot, sparkling waves until almost out of sight. When half a mile out, it turned and flew slowly along the crest of the waves towards the rocky cliffs of Middle Head, and then dropped suddenly into the water, upon which it remained bobbing like a duck.

Free from this incubus, I looked once more upon the home of the ravens, — the hunchbacked pine, the shattered rocks, and, far above them, the cliffs upon whose inaccessible ledges young ravens first see light. The surroundings were those of a sturdier bird than the crow. There were no gently sighing forests, waving corn-fields, or placid lakes here, but instead the stern crags, rude sea, and broken rocks, — makers of deep, angry music, harsh discords, and wild, sorrowful refrains. The crow boasts from the moment his loud voice first comes back to his ears from the echoing hillside, he steals from the time he sees the corn blades start from the furrow, and he shuns danger as often as the tread of man or deer snaps a dry twig in the forest. The raven's croak can wake no echo to match the sea's chorus, his food is not won by theft, and dangers which come from sky and tossing wave are not such as to stimulate craft or to inculcate wariness.