the path, which soon led down to the border of a wide marsh. The crossing of the marsh was terrible. The poor animal sank into the mire to the girth, reared, plunged and rolled, plastering himself and rider all over and over again with the foulest mud. When they reached the solid ground, and trotted along towards some natives coming abroad to their labor, the appearance of our traveller, in quest of the sublime and beautiful, was certainly not imposing. He told his story to the staring Indians in the best way his ingenuity could invent, none of which they could be made to comprehend. He inquired the way to the town, the very name of which they seemed never to have heard. He asked the distance to any place—the nearest—no matter what. It was just as far as he was pleased to make it.
“Was it two leagues?”
“Si, Señor.”
“Was it five leagues?”
“Si, Señor.”
“Was it eight, nine, ten leagues?”
“Si, Señor.”
“For how much money would they guide him to the town?”
Ah! that was a different thing; they had more intelligence on that subject. They would guide him for a great deal. In fact, they would do it for about ten times its value. He spurred his muddy mule, galloped out of sight and hearing, more amused than vexed, and went ahead at a venture. The venture was lucky. In the course of the morning he made his entrance into the city, succeeded in finding out the residence of the person to whom he had letters of introduction, presented himself to the gentleman of the house, an American, and had both a welcome and a breakfast. Before the day was past, F—— and himself were comfortably settled, and, with their kind host, were making merry over their first ride on the mountains of South America. I am sure I was made merry at the quiet recital. Lying as I was in my berth, rolled in cloak and blanket, and looking neither at the face nor motions of the speaker, but only at the blank beams and boards close above, I laughed till the tears ran copiously, and I forgot that I was miserable and sea-sick.
CHAPTER IV.
HALIFAX.
We have now been lying for hours off Halifax. The fog appears to be in a profound slumber. Whistle, bell and big guns have no power to wake it up. The waves themselves have gone to sleep under the fleecy covering. Old Ocean lazily breathes and dreams. The top-mast, lofty and slim, marks and flourishes on the misty sky, as an idler marks the sand with his cane. Pricked on by our impatience, back and forth we step the deck, about as purposeless as leopards step their cage. They are letting off the steam. It is flowing up from the great fountains, a deep and solemn voice, a grand ventriloquism, that muffles in its breadth and fulness all the smaller sounds, as the mighty roar dampens the noisy dashings of the cataract. What a sublime translation of human skill and genius is an engine, this stupendous creature of iron! How splendid are its polished limbs! What power in all those easy motions! What execution in those still and oily manœuvres!
Among the ladies there is one of more than ordinary beauty. Luxuriant, dark hair, a fair complexion with the bloom of health, a head and neck that would attract a sculptor, and surpassingly fine, black eyes. There is a power in beauty. Why has not God given it to us all? You shall answer me that in heaven. There is indeed a power in beauty. It goes forth from this young woman on all sides, like rays from some central light. I have called her a New England girl, but she turns out to be Welsh.
How like magic is the work of this fog! Instantly almost it is pulled apart like a fleece of wool, and lo! the heavens, the ocean, and the rugged shores. A pilot comes aboard from a fishing-boat, looking as rough and craggy as if he had been, toad-like, blasted out of the rocks of his flinty country, so brown and warty is his skin, so shaggy are his beard and hair, so sail-like and tarry is his raiment. The ancient mariner for all the world! His skinny hand touches no common mortal. His glittering eye looks right on, as he moves with silent importance to the place where shine the gilded buttons of the captain.
This is a wild northern scene. Hills, bony with rock and bristling with pointed firs, slope down to the sea. But yet how beautiful is any land looking off upon the barren deeps of ocean. Distant is the city on a hill-side, glittering at a thousand points, while on either hand, as we move in at the entrance of the harbor, are the pleasant woods and the white dwellings, country steeples and cultivated grounds. As the comfortless mist rolls away, and the golden light follows after, warming the wet and chilly landscape, I feel that there are bliss and beauty in Nova Scotia.
Grandly as we parade ourselves, in the presence of the country and the town, I prefer the more modest, back-street entrance of the railroad. The fact is, I am afraid of your great steamer on the main, and for the reason given by a friend of mine: if you have a smash-up on the land, why, there you are; if, on the sea, where are you?
I have been talking with the fair lady of Wales. She was all spirit. “There was much,” she said, “that was fine, in America; but Wales was most beautiful of all. Had I ever been in Wales?” One could well have felt sorry he was not then on his way to Wales. We parted where we met, probably to meet no more, and I went forward to gaze upon the crowded wharf, which we were then approaching. A few hasty adieus to some newly-formed acquaintances, and we passed ashore to seek the steamer for Cape Breton. It was waiting for us just behind the storehouse where we landed, and soon followed the America with a speed not exactly in proportion to the noise and effort.
CHAPTER V.
THE MERLIN.
Be it known that the Merlin, the name in which our vessel delights, is a small propeller, with a screw wheel, and a crazy mess of machinery in the middle, which go far towards making one deaf and dumb by day, but very wakeful and talkative by night; so thoroughly are the rumbling, thumping and clanking disseminated through all those parts appointed for the passengers. The Merlin has not only her peculiar noises, but her own peculiar ways and motions; motions half wallowing and half progressive; a compound motion very difficult to describe, at the time, mainly on account of a disagreeable confusion in the brain and stomach.
The arrangements in the Merlin for going to repose are better than those for quitting it. No chestnut lies more snugly in the burr than your passenger in his berth. If he happen to be short and slender, it is sure to fit him all the better. But when he gets out of it, he is pushed forward into company immediately, and washes in the one bowl, and looks at the one glass. On board the Merlin, one feels disposed to give the harshest words of his vocabulary a frequent airing. He sees how it is, and he says to himself: I have the secret of this Merlin; she is intended to put a stop to travel; to hinder people from leaving Halifax for Sydney and St. Johns. Wait you eight and forty hours after this ungenerous soliloquy, and speak out then. What do you say? The Merlin is the thing!
Away in this dusky corner of the world Peril spins her web. High and wide and deep she stretches her subtle lines: cliffs, reefs and banks, ice, currents, mists and winds. But the Merlin is no moth, no feeble insect to get entangled in this terrible snare. Dark-winged dragonfly of the sea, she cuts right through them all. Your grand ocean steamer, with commander of repute, plays the tragic actress quite too frequently in the presence of these dread capes. But the Merlin, with Captain Sampson’s tread upon the deck, in the night and in the light, with his look ahead and his eye aloft, and his plummet in the deep sea, trips along her billowy path as lightly as a lady trips among her flowers. A blessing upon Captain Sampson who sails the little Merlin from
