2 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



of larch and spruce swamp, burned woodland 

 given up to tangles of fireweed and briers, and 

 cheerless, rock - rimmed ponds in low woods 

 haunted us until we reached Digby. True, our 

 escape from the railway at Meteghan station, 

 and our five hours with Mr. Sheehan, the royal 

 mail carrier and hospitable hotel keeper, bright- 

 ened us somewhat ; but there was nothing at 

 the railway to tell us of the quaint French set- 

 tlement of Meteghan which lay concealed, be- 

 yond 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 lead- 

 ing straight out to the golden glory of the bay 

 of storms. Through that rift in the hill ro- 

 mance 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 re- 

 mained behind to dwell forever in Port Royal's 

 placid basin. 



