The Water Seeks Out All The Low Places, And Ramifies The
Interior, Running Away Into Lovely Bays And Lagoons, Leaving
Slender
tongues of land and picturesque islands, and bringing into the
recesses of the land, to the remote country farms
And settlements,
the flavor of salt, and the fish and mollusks of the briny sea.
There is very little tide at any time, so that the shores are clean
and sightly for the most part, like those of fresh-water lakes. It
has all the pleasantness of a fresh-water lake, with all the
advantages of a salt one. In the streams which run into it are the
speckled trout, the shad, and the salmon; out of its depths are
hooked the cod and the mackerel, and in its bays fattens the oyster.
This irregular lake is about a hundred miles long, if you measure it
skillfully, and in some places ten miles broad; but so indented is
it, that I am not sure but one would need, as we were informed, to
ride a thousand miles to go round it, following all its incursions
into the land. The hills about it are never more than five or six
hundred feet high, but they are high enough for reposeful beauty, and
offer everywhere pleasing lines.
What we first saw was an inlet of the Bras d'Or, called, by the
driver, Hogamah Bay. At its entrance were long, wooded islands,
beyond which we saw the backs of graceful hills, like the capes of
some poetic sea-coast. The bay narrowed to a mile in width where we
came upon it, and ran several miles inland to a swamp, round the head
of which we must go. Opposite was the village of Hogamah. I had my
suspicions from the beginning about this name, and now asked the
driver, who was liberally educated for a driver, how he spelled
"Hogamah."
"Why-ko-ko-magh. Hogamah."
Sometimes it is called Wykogamah. Thus the innocent traveler is
misled. Along the Whykokomagh Bay we come to a permanent encampment
of the Micmac Indians, - a dozen wigwams in the pine woods. Though
lumber is plenty, they refuse to live in houses. The wigwams,
however, are more picturesque than the square frame houses of the
whites. Built up conically of poles, with a hole in the top for the
smoke to escape, and often set up a little from the ground on a
timber foundation, they are as pleasing to the eye as a Chinese or
Turkish dwelling. They may be cold in winter, but blessed be the
tenacity of barbarism, which retains this agreeable architecture.
The men live by hunting in the season, and the women support the
family by making moccasins and baskets. These Indians are most of
them good Catholics, and they try to go once a year to mass and a
sort of religious festival held at St. Peter's, where their sins are
forgiven in a yearly lump.
At Whykokomagh, a neat fishing village of white houses, we stopped
for dinner at the Inverness House. The house was very clean, and the
tidy landlady gave us as good a dinner as she could of the inevitable
green tea, toast, and salt fish. She was Gaelic, but Protestant, as
the village is, and showed us with pride her Gaelic Bible and
hymn-book. A peaceful place, this Whykokomagh; the lapsing waters of
Bras d'Or made a summer music all along the quiet street; the bay lay
smiling with its islands in front, and an amphitheater of hills rose
behind. But for the line of telegraph poles one might have fancied
he could have security and repose here.
We put a fresh pony into the shafts, a beast born with an everlasting
uneasiness in his legs, and an amount of "go" in him which suited his
reckless driver. We no longer stood upon the order of our going; we
went. As we left the village, we passed a rocky hay-field, where the
Gaelic farmer was gathering the scanty yield of grass. A comely
Indian girl was stowing the hay and treading it down on the wagon.
The driver hailed the farmer, and they exchanged Gaelic repartee
which set all the hay-makers in a roar, and caused the Indian maid to
darkly and sweetly beam upon us. We asked the driver what he had
said. He had only inquired what the man would take for the load - as
it stood! A joke is a joke down this way.
I am not about to describe this drive at length, in order that the
reader may skip it; for I know the reader, being of like passion and
fashion with him. From the time we first struck the Bras d'Or for
thirty miles we rode in constant sight of its magnificent water. Now
we were two hundred feet above the water, on the hillside, skirting a
point or following an indentation; and now we were diving into a
narrow valley, crossing a stream, or turning a sharp corner, but
always with the Bras d'Or in view, the afternoon sun shining on it,
softening the outlines of its embracing hills, casting a shadow from
its wooded islands. Sometimes we opened on a broad water plain
bounded by the Watchabaktchkt hills, and again we looked over hill
after hill receding into the soft and hazy blue of the land beyond
the great mass of the Bras d'Or. The reader can compare the view and
the ride to the Bay of Naples and the Cornice Road; we did nothing of
the sort; we held on to the seat, prayed that the harness of the pony
might not break, and gave constant expression to our wonder and
delight. For a week we had schooled ourselves to expect nothing more
from this wicked world, but here was an enchanting vision.
The only phenomenon worthy the attention of any inquiring mind, in
this whole record, I will now describe. As we drove along the side
of a hill, and at least two hundred feet above the water, the road
suddenly diverged and took a circuit higher up.
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