I 



CAPE HOBN AND HEKMITE ISLAND 135 



for we were under high black-looking mountains rising at 

 once from the water, and we could just see their white tops 

 glimmering through the darkness. 



When the moon got up the view was beautiful, and a 

 more extraordinary anchorage for wildness and sublimity 

 we never lay at. In the morning the quietness of the spot 

 and the green woods, which we had not cast eyes upon for 

 twelve good months, was most refreshing. The little cove 

 was so foreshortened lying amongst hills so high all round 

 that we could hardly suppose it would afford shelter, which 

 it did however, when we were warped about If miles up 

 towards its head, opposite a few wigwams of the natives. 

 The island is so narrow that we could always hear the hollow 

 roar of the surf on its weather shores, and after one of the 

 hard gales which were common there would be a slight swell 

 in the cove, whose beaches were so steep as sometimes 

 to prevent landing. All along the N. side of the Bay the 

 Mts. are quite precipitous, with a great deal of snow on their 

 ridges. On the South side they rise at an angle of 45 degrees 

 up from the water, with a few cliffs here and there so straight 

 that though the cove is very narrow the top of Kater's Peak, 

 1700 ft. high, is seen from the ships when in the centre. The 

 head of the cove runs up in a broad densely wooded valley 

 to another ridge of hills which complete the amphitheatre of 

 mountains. Altogether the place reminded me very much of 

 the Trossachs or the head of Loch Long contracted.^ 



The foliage being much Hke that of the Birch, and the 

 steep mountain torrents keeping up a continual roar which 

 often put me in mind of many a night spent in the Highlands. 

 Nothing is so soothing as the sound of rushing water, and 

 it was very delightful to lie at night in bed with the door 

 and hatch open and hear the little cataracts roaring, how- 

 ever, I soon found sleep much more delightful and forgot the 

 romance, —finally its effects were quite mesmeric (Is that 

 the new name ?). The weather for the first few days was 

 most beautiful, and we began to think the Horn a sadly 

 abused and traduced place. Spring came on rapidly, the 



^ * In grandeur, perhaps, St. Martin's Cove was little behind that favourite 

 spot. Many things were, however, wanted to complete the picture as Scotch ; 

 perhaps, like Glen Croe, it was wild without being really beautiful, and only 

 assumed the latter appearance to us because for eleven months we had not seen 

 a tree.' (To Rev. James Hamilton, November 28, 1842.) 



