24 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



track over the cobblestone beach led to the 

 mainland, and then, past farm and fisherman's 

 hut, thirty - four miles to Ingonish Bay, and 

 thirty-six miles more to Cape North. Our lodg- 

 ing-places must be the simple homes of Gaelic- 

 speaking Presbyterians, in whose eyes we should 

 be foreigners, not to say heathen. Letters from 

 James Dunlop, of Baddeck, addressed to various 

 members of Clan McDonald, were our principal 

 hope of hospitality. The dimly marked road 

 and the cobblestone reef, wheeling, shrieking 

 terns, pounding waves from the northern ocean, 

 and a sight of new and strange plants combined 

 to thrill us with a sense of charming novelty 

 and wildness. It was still early in the after- 

 noon, and as we did not care how far we ad- 

 vanced, having already been carried as far as 

 we originally planned to walk that day, we 

 strolled slowly along the bar, enjoying the mere 

 fact of living. 



Among the plants growing upon the loosely 

 packed, egg-shaped stones was one quite unfa- 

 miliar and of most uncommon appearance. Its 

 succulent and glaucous leaves were bluish-gray 

 in color, and set thickly upon prostrate stems 

 which radiated like devilfish tentacles from a 

 common centre. The leaves diminished rapidly 

 in size as they left the root, and at the extremity 

 of each stem there were uncoiling: clusters of 



