Would the voyage
could last for an age, with the same sparkling but tranquil sea, and
the same environment of hills, near and remote! The hills approached
and fell away in lines of undulating grace, draped with a tender
color which helped to carry the imagination beyond the earth. At
this point the narrative needs to flow into verse, but my comrade did
not feel like another attempt at poetry so soon after that on the Gut
of Canso. A man cannot always be keyed up to the pitch of
production, though his emotions may be highly creditable to him. But
poetry-making in these days is a good deal like the use of profane
language,--often without the least provocation.
Twelve miles from Baddeck we passed through the Barra Strait, or the
Grand Narrows, a picturesque feature in the Bras d'Or, and came into
its widest expanse. At the Narrows is a small settlement with a
flag-staff and a hotel, and roads leading to farmhouses on the hills.
Here is a Catholic chapel; and on shore a fat padre was waiting in
his wagon for the inevitable priest we always set ashore at such a
place. The missionary we landed was the young father from Arichat,
and in appearance the pleasing historical Jesuit. Slender is too
corpulent a word to describe his thinness, and his stature was
primeval. Enveloped in a black coat, the skirts of which reached his
heels, and surmounted by a black hat with an enormous brim, he had
the form of an elegant toadstool.
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