Down North and Up Along 
region of wild mountains and picturesque 
Highlanders. 
There are no such things at Port Hawk.es- 
bury ; on the contrary, the country is scrubby 
and uninteresting, and the Gut of Canso, as 
one crosses it in a wheezy little steamer, is a 
disappointing Gut to the tourist, not at all 
worthy of its uncommon and confident name. 
Its principal virtue is its depth, — a wholly 
commercial virtue. 
That it is a deep Gut, however, and has 
always — since the coming of the white man 
— been the principal passage for ships sailing 
between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, did not commend it to us. 
Three miles down the coast toward the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence is Port Hastings, equally 
uninteresting until one discovers that it pos- 
sesses a historic importance out of all propor- 
tion to its looks, for here the first Atlantic 
cable crossed the Gut of Canso. The first 
transatlantic cable was laid from the coast of 
Ireland to the east coast of Newfoundland, 
over the " telegraphic plateau " that provi- 
dentially crosses the ocean for its support, and 
in 1858 the first message successfully crossed 
162 
