FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 15 



dark forests of spruce and balsam. Many of the 

 hills, rising from the water with resolute lines, 

 wore the dignity of mountains ; and so perfect 

 were their proportions that bays only half a mile 

 in length often seemed like far-reaching thorough- 

 fares worthy of a voyager's exploration. Grad- 

 ually the Grand Narrows bridge faded away, 

 until it looked like a line of tatting work against 

 the gray sky. Then the most distant hills north- 

 ward rose into well-rounded summits, and at last 

 two noble headlands invited us to turn westward 

 between them, and to approach Baddeck, masked 

 by an island, spruce-grown, heron-haunted, and 

 capped by a tiny lighthouse whose gleaming eye 

 now emphasized the gathering gloom. 



The traveler who expects anything picturesque 

 in an American village, town, or city, whether it 

 be seen from the sea, a lake, a plain, or a hilltop, 

 will in nine cases out of ten be wholly disap- 

 pointed. Box-shaped wooden warehouses, shops, 

 dwellings, and churches, whether arranged in 

 parallelograms or hurled together in true Marble- 

 head fashion, whether painted white, pink, green, 

 yellow, or red, or not painted at all, generally 

 lack the power of pleasing the eye. They are 

 cheap, comfortless in appearance, temporary in 

 nature, and essentially vulgar in design. Bad- 

 deck, as we anticipated, consisted of the usual 

 conglomeration of wooden buildings, rickety 



