FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 7 



Many a rough White Mountain scramble up 

 three thousand feet yields nothing like the view 

 which this hill affords. The Nova Scotian 

 glories in the fact that from it he can see into 

 seven counties, and count prosperous farms by 

 the score and apple-trees by the hundred thou- 

 sand. 



From the shores of the basin westward through 

 the valley between the North and South Moun- 

 tain well-tilled farm lands reach towards An- 

 napolis as far as the eye can see. It is a patch- 

 work of which the provinces are and may well 

 be proud ; that quilted landscape, with grain and 

 potatoes, orchard and hayfield, feather-stitched 

 in squares by zigzag pole fences. Were this 

 the whole or the essence of the view from the 

 Look-off, it would not be worth writing about, 

 for farm lands by themselves, or with a frame 

 of rounded hills, are neither novel nor inspiring. 

 That which stirs, in this view, is the mingling 

 of Minas Basin, its blue water and dim farther 

 shores, with Grand Pre and the other dike lands 

 and with the red bluffs of Pereaux. The patch- 

 work and hills serve only as contrast, back- 

 ground, filling, to the pronounced features of 

 sparkling sea, bright green meadows cleft from 

 the sea by dikes, terra-cotta sands and bluffs, 

 and the forest-covered ridge leading towards half- 

 concealed Blomidon, the monarch of this gay 



