NEWFOUNDLAND.—ST. JOHNS.
WHEN the mist dispersed, the rocky shores of Newfoundland were close
upon our left,—lofty cliffs, red and gray, terribly beaten by the waves
of the broad ocean. We amused ourselves, as we passed abreast the bays
and headlands and rugged islands, with gazing at the wild scene, and
searching out the beauty timidly reposing among the bleak and desolate.
On the whole, Newfoundland, to the voyager from the States, is a lean
and bony land, in thin, ragged clothes, with the smallest amount of
ornament. Along the sides of the dull, brown mountains there is a
suspicion of verdure, spotted and striped here and there with meagre
woods of birch and fir. The glory of this hard region is its coast: a
wonderful perplexity of fiords, bays and creeks, islands, peninsulas and
capes, endlessly picturesque, and very often magnificently grand.
Nothing can well exceed the headlands and precipices, honey-combed,
shattered, and hollowed out into vast caverns, and given up to the
thunders and the fury of the deep-sea billows. Read the Pirate of Scott
again, and Sumburg Head will picture for you numbers of heads, of which
it is not important to mention the name. The brooks that flow from the
highlands, and fall over cliffs of great elevation into the very surf,
and that would be counted features of grandeur in some countries, are
here the merest trifles, a kind of jewelry on the hem of the landscape.
The harbor of St. Johns is certainly one of the most remarkable for bold
and effective scenery on the Atlantic shore. The pictures of it, which
of late abound, and are quite truthful as miniature portraits, fail
entirely to suggest the grand expression and strong character of the
coast. We were moving spiritedly forward over a bright and lively sea,
watching the stern headlands receding in the south, and starting out to
view in the north, when we passed Cape Spear, a lofty promontory,
crowned with a light-house and a signal-shaft, upon which was floating
the meteor-flag of England, and at once found ourselves abreast the bay
in front of St. Johns. Not a vestige, though, of any thing like a city
was in sight, except another flag flitting on a distant pinnacle of
rock. Like a mighty Coliseum, the sea-wall half encircled the deep water
of this outer bay, into which the full power of the ocean let itself
under every wind except the westerly. Right towards the coast where it
gathered itself up into the greatest massiveness, and tied itself into a
very Gordian knot, we cut across, curious to behold when and where the
rugged adamant was going to split and let us through. At length it
opened, and we looked through, and presently glided through a kind of
mountain-pass, with all the lonely grandeur of the Franconia Notch.
Above us, and close above, the rugged, brown cliffs rose to a fine
height, armed at certain points with cannon, and before us, to all
appearance, opened out a most beautiful mountain lake, with a little
city looking down from the mountain side, and a swamp of shipping along
its shores. We were in the harbor, and before St. Johns. As we bade
adieu to the sea, and hailed the land with our plucky little gun, the
echoes rolled among the hills, and rattled along the rocky galleries of
the mountains in the finest style. We were quite delighted. So fresh and
novel was the prospect, so unexpected were the peculiar sentiment and
character of the scene, one could hardly realize that it was old to the
experience of tens of thousands. I could scarcely help feeling, there
was stupidity somewhere, that more had not been said about what had been
seen by so many for so long a time.