most popular in that province. Our imaginations were kindled by
reading that the "most superb line of stages on the continent" ran
from New Glasgow to the Gut of Canso. If the reader perfectly
understands this programme, he has the advantage of the two
travelers at the time they made it.

It was a gray morning when we embarked from St. John, and in fact a
little drizzle of rain veiled the Martello tower, and checked, like
the cross-strokes of a line engraving, the hill on which it stands.
The miscellaneous shining of such a harbor appears best in a golden
haze, or in the mist of a morning like this. We had expected days of
fog in this region; but the fog seemed to have gone out with the high
tides of the geography. And it is simple justice to these
possessions of her Majesty, to say that in our two weeks'
acquaintance of them they enjoyed as delicious weather as ever falls
on sea and shore, with the exception of this day when we crossed the
Bay of Fundy. And this day was only one of those cool interludes of
low color, which an artist would be thankful to introduce among a
group of brilliant pictures. Such a day rests the traveler, who is
overstimulated by shifting scenes played upon by the dazzling sun.
So the cool gray clouds spread a grateful umbrella above us as we ran
across the Bay of Fundy, sighted the headlands of the Gut of Digby,
and entered into the Annapolis Basin, and into the region of a
romantic history. The white houses of Digby, scattered over the
downs like a flock of washed sheep, had a somewhat chilly aspect, it
is true, and made us long for the sun on them. But as I think of it
now, I prefer to have the town and the pretty hillsides that stand
about the basin in the light we saw them; and especially do I like to
recall the high wooden pier at Digby, deserted by the tide and so
blown by the wind that the passengers who came out on it, with their