nd; in full health, in full strength; swift upon my sight came
the vision of the one familiar river; the cottage and the chestnuts; the
rolling greensward, and the Palisades; and there, too, was my _best_
friend; and there--

"My young barbarians all at play."

Drive on, John Ormond!

Our Cape Breton stage is an easy, two-seated vehicle; a quiet, little
rockaway-wagon, with a top; and although H. B. M. Royal Mail Coach,
entirely different from the huge musk-melon upon wheels with which we are
familiar in the States. In it I am the only passenger. Thank Heaven for
that! I might be riding beside an aibstract preencepel.

But never mind! Drive on, John Ormond; we shall soon be among another race
of Scotsmen, the bold Highlandmen of romance; the McGregors, and
McPhersons, the Camerons, Grahams, and McDonalds; and as a century or so
does not alter the old-country prejudices of the people in these
settlements, we will no doubt find them in their pristine habiliments; in
plaids and spleuchens; brogues and buckles; hose and bonnets; with
claymore, dirk, and target; the white cockade and eagle feather, so
beautiful in the Waverley Novels.

We left the pretty village of Sydney behind us, and were not long in
gaining the margin of the Bras d'Or. This great lake, or rather arm of the
sea, is, as I have said, about one hundred miles in length by its shore
road; but so wide is it, and so indented by broad bays and deep coves,
that a coasting journey around it is equal in extent to a voyage across
the Atlantic. Besides the distant mountains that rise proudly from the
remote shores, there are many noble islands in its expanse, and
forest-covered peninsulas, bordered with beaches of glittering white
pebbles. But over all this wide landscape there broods a spirit of
primeval solitude; not a sail broke the loneliness of the lake until we
had advanced far upon our day's journey. For strange as it may seem, the
Golden Arm is a very useless piece of water in this part of the world;
highly favored as it is by nature, land-locked, deep enough for vessels of
all burden, easy of access on the gulf side, free from fogs, and only
separated from the ocean at its western end by a narrow strip of land,
about three quarters of a mile wide; abounding in timber, coal, and
gypsum, and valuable for its fisheries, especially in winter, yet the Bras
d'Or is undeveloped for want of that element which scorns to be alien to
the Colonies, namely, _ente