the poetical Acadia down to Halifax; to turn north and east
by rail from Halifax to New Glasgow, and from thence to push on by stage
to the Gut of Canso. This would carry us over the entire length of Nova
Scotia, and, with good luck, land us on Cape Breton Island Saturday
morning. When we should set foot on that island, we trusted that we
should be able to make our way to Baddeck, by walking, swimming, or
riding, whichever sort of locomotion should be most popular in that
province. Our imaginations were kindled by reading that the "most superb
line of stages on the continent" ran from New Glasgow to the Gut of
Canso. If the reader perfectly understands this programme, he has the
advantage of the two travelers at the time they made it.

It was a gray morning when we embarked from St. John, and in fact a
little drizzle of rain veiled the Martello tower, and checked, like
the cross-strokes of a line engraving, the hill on which it stands. The
miscellaneous shining of such a harbor appears best in a golden haze, or
in the mist of a morning like this. We had expected days of fog in this
region; but the fog seemed to have gone out with the high tides of the
geography. And it is simple justice to these possessions of her Majesty,
to say that in our two weeks' acquaintance of them they enjoyed as
delicious weather as ever falls on sea and shore, with the exception of
this day when we crossed the Bay of Fundy. And this day was only one of
those cool interludes of low color, which an artist would be thankful
to introduce among a group of brilliant pictures. Such a day rests the
traveler, who is overstimulated by shifting scenes played upon by the
dazzling sun. So the cool gray clouds spread a grateful umbrella above
us as we ran across the Bay of Fundy, sighted the headlands of the Gut
of Digby, and entered into the Annapolis Basin, and into the region of
a romantic history. The white houses of Digby, scattered over the downs
like a flock of washed sheep, had a somewhat chilly aspect, it is true,
and made us long for the sun on them. But as I think of it now, I prefer
to have the town and the pretty hillsides that stand about the basin
in the light we saw them; and especially do I like to recall the high
wooden pier at Digby, deserted by the tide and so blown by the wind that
the passengers who came out on it, with their tossing drapery, brought
to mind the windy Dutch harbors that Backhuysen painted. We landed a
priest here, and