Baddeck 
low mumbling tones that to us soon became a 
monotonous drone of unfamiliar sounds. 
One by one they got up and prayed and sat 
down, until we began to weary exceedingly 
from sitting still so long on the hard wooden 
seats, and were inconsistently thankful for 
the law which excludes women from also 
taking part in public services. Fortunately 
the praying was interspersed by singing, which 
caused us for the time to forget weariness 
and to become lost in wonder, if not in 
admiration. 
The leader sang metrical Psalms in a voice 
that was not without dignity and music ; the 
melody was entirely unknown to us, and at a 
curious up-slide at the end of each phrase, the 
congregation joined in a chorus difficult to de- 
scribe. There came a deep crash and burr of 
male voices, embroidered, so to speak, by the 
most astonishing and unrelated high soprano 
embellishments from the women. It was 
amazing, unexpectedly and finely barbaric, re- 
taining a strong flavour of vanished centuries 
when all the wild northern hordes struggled 
for supremacy, and when the inspiration to 
their music was the crashing of waves on the 
169 
