ering in hue to
olive-groves, the other to the green of vines. Meanwhile, the
palpitating sheen on the land, the star-sprinkled blueness of the sea,
together with the softness of the delicious day, brought vividly to mind
those days in the Aegean when not even the disabilities of an invalid
could prevent his leaping over and swimming along by the ship's side.

It was a great surprise, this climate and scene. I had expected chill
skies and bleak shores: I found the perfect pleasantness of summer in
the air, and a coast-scenery with which that of New England in general
cannot vie.

Cape-Breton Isle is worthy of respect. With a population, if I remember
rightly, of some thirty thousand, and an area of more than three
thousand square miles, embracing an inland sea, or salt lake, deep
enough for ships-of-the-line, it has, in addition to its great mineral
wealth, a soil capable of large crops. Wheat and corn do not thrive, but
barley, oats, potatoes, and many root-crops grow abundantly. And I may
add, in passing, that Nova Scotia, over which I travelled on my return,
is worthy of a better repute. On the ocean side there is, indeed, a
strip from twenty to forty miles wide which is barren as the "Secesh"
heart of Halifax. The rock here is metamorphic, the soil worthless, the
scenery rugged, yet mean. Gold is found,--in such quantities that the
labor of each man yields a _gross_ result of two hundred and fifty-six
dollars a year! Deduct the cost of crushing the quartz, (for it is found
only in quartz,) and there is left--how much? But the Gulf-coast, and
the side of the province next the Bay of Fundy, have a carboniferous and
red-sandstone formation, with a soil often deep and rich, faultless
meads and river-intervals, and a tender shore-scenery, relieved by ruddy
cliffs, and high, broken, burnt-umber islands.

But we are sailing up the Gulf. And while the day shines and wanes, and
the shades of evening, suffused with tender color, fall gently, and the
Gulf to the west is deeply touched with veiled, but glowing crimson,
when the sun is down, and on the other hand Cape-Breton Isle puts forth,
close to our course, two small representative islands, red sandstone,
charmingly ruddy under the sunset light,--while a mild wind, sinking,
but not ceasing, bears us on through daylight, twilight, starlight, each
perfect of its kind,--let me introduce our voyagers severally to the
reader.

First, the ship, surely a voyager as much as any