14 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



Bras d'Or. Had the afternoon been pleasant 

 the voyage would have been charming, for the 

 placid inland sea, with its picturesque shores 

 now close in view, and again below the horizon, 

 is one of the chief beauties of Cape Breton. As 

 the afternoon was shrouded in fine rain, the Big 

 Bras d'Or would have been no more attractive 

 than any other chilly fog-bank, and the .voyage 

 through it would have consumed all the remain- 

 ing hours of the day. As matters stood, we had 

 two hours of daylight before us ; the rain had al- 

 most ceased ; an occasional gleam of golden light 

 wandered over the shores of the Little Bras d'Or ; 

 and we were about to embark on a steamer which 

 would take us through a portion of the lakes 

 where both of the hilly and picturesque shores 

 would be uninterruptedly in sight. 



Had we seen this charming landscape immedi- 

 ately after bidding farewell to Chocorua, it would 

 have failed to make the strong impression upon us 

 which as a matter of fact it did produce. So much 

 of Nova Scotia between Yarmouth and Halifax, 

 and so nearly the whole of the country between 

 Halifax and Grand Narrows, had been of a kind 

 which every one sleeps through or scowls at in 

 the States that the Bras d'Or was a paradise in 

 comparison : a lake, yet the sea with its restless 

 jellyfish; the sea, yet a land-locked basin sur- 

 rounded by graceful hills, trim farm lands, and 



