rom end
to end, you will find many beautiful plants and flowers, but not a
single spray of heather. Only in one spot in the whole vast Dominion
will you find the plant that is so characteristically Scottish,
growing naturally, and that is in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax.
Tradition has it that on this spot, in 1757, the soldiers of the
"Black Watch," the 42nd Highlanders, first set foot on Canadian soil.
Here in this park, one of the most beautiful in America, the visitor
is shown a plot of Scottish heather, flourishing vigorously in spite
of souvenir hunters and vandals.

The Black Watch arrived at Halifax in the spring of 1757 to take part
in the expedition against Louisburg, under General Abercrombie. Some
say that the men of the Regiment, desirous of perpetuating the badge
of so many of their clansmen, planted the heather seed where it now
grows. Others, that the palliasses or mattresses of the soldiers were
emptied here after the voyage, and the heather with which they had
been filled in Scotland provided the seed from which this plot grew.
It matters very little how it came. The heather still flourishes on
the spot where the Black Watch first pitched its tent in Canada.

The expedition against Louisburg was abandoned, but the following year
the regiment took part in the operations against the French under
Montcalm at Lake George. Visitors there are shown the ruins of the
ramparts of Ticonderoga. Around these ruins cling many legends and
stories, but the name of Ticonderoga will live forever in the weird
tale immortalized by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Parkman and the poem of
Robert Louis Stevenson. It is told how on the eve of the battle there
appeared to Duncan Campbell, of Inverawe, Major of the Black Watch,
the wraith of a relative, murdered by a man to whom Campbell had
granted sanctuary. This wraith had years previously appeared to him
and warned him that he would meet him at "Ticonderoga." The following
day Major Campbell died at the head of the assaulting columns of the
Black Watch, and that brave regiment lost 655 officers and men, nearly
equalling the losses of the "Red Watch," the 48th Highlanders of
Canada, at the Battle of St. Julian in Flanders, when their roll
showed 691 casualties.

The charge of the Black Watch at Ticonderoga was one of the bravest
exploits of British arms. The gallant Highlanders advanced against the
log redoubts and abattis of the French under Montcalm, hacking at the
branches wit