RAMBLE AMONG THE FLOWERS OF BATTLE ISLAND.—A VISIT TO THE
FISHERMEN.—WALK AMONG THE HILLS OF CARIBOO.
SATURDAY, _July 9_. We are abroad again on the rocky hills, fanned with
the soft, summer wind, and blessed with the loveliest sunshine. The
mosses sparkle with their sweet-scented blossoms of purple, white, and
red, and the wood-thrush is pouring out its plaintive melody over the
bleak crags, and the homes of fishermen, around whose doors I see the
children playing as merrily as the children of fortune in more favored
lands. How many a tender parent, now watching over a sick child in the
wealthy city, would be glad to have the sufferer here, to be the
playfellow of these simple boys and girls, if he could have their health
and promise of life. Captain Knight comes with his hands full of
flowers, not unlike the daisy; and here come Hutchinson and the Painter.
We meet around this moss-covered crag, where I am sitting with my book
and pencil, and resolve at once to go down, and visit an islet of the
harbor, where a few families have a summer residence during the fishing
season.
Here we are among the huts and dogs, and English people, with the ways
of Labrador. A kind woman, with whom I have been talking about the
deprivations of her lot in life, has offered to bake bread for us when
we can send the flour. The Painter is out sketching this summer nest
upon the bleak, surf-washed rocks, about as wild-looking as the
nesting-place of sea-birds. Generous-hearted people! I am pleased with
their simple ways, and their affectionate, but most respectful manner
toward their pastor. Well, indeed, they may be both respectful and
affectionate. His life is a sacrifice for them and their children. What
but the love of Christ and of men could lead one here, and keep him
here, who can ornament and bless the most cultivated society? I thank
God, that He gives us witness, in such men, of the power and excellency
of His grace upon the human heart. We sail across the harbor to a cove,
or chasm in the lofty sea-wall, with the intention of a walk over the
hills of Cariboo, while Hutchinson visits a few of his parishioners
thereabouts.
After a pleasant ramble, during which we were often tempted to run and
jump with very delight along the spongy, springy moss, blushing here and
there with its sweet bloom, we sit down on the top of a high hill, and
look off upon the ocean and the bay of St. Louis, extending far into the
desolate interior like a series of blue lakes. All the beauteous apparel
of summer has been stripped off, and the brown and broken bones of the
sad earth are bleaching in the wind and sun. You would be delighted,
though, with the little vales, notched and shelved with craggy terraces
that catch and hold the sunshine. They have the sultry warmth and scent
of a conservatory, and are frequently rich with herbage, now in flower.
It seems a pity that these nooks of verdure and floral beauty should
thus “waste their sweetness on the desert air.” For a few days, the
woolly flocks of New England would thrive in Labrador. During those few
days, there are thousands of her fair daughters who would love to tend
them. I prophesy the time is coming when the invalid and tourist from
the States will be often found spending the brief, but lovely summer
here, notwithstanding its ruggedness and desolation. Upon reflection, a
broad and ancient solitude like this has a sadness in it which no bloom,
no sun can dispel. Never, never, in all my life, have I beheld a land
like this, the expression and sentiment of which are essentially
mournful and melancholy. The sunshine, skies, “the pomp and circumstance
of” ocean, sweet smells, and sounds, and one’s own joyous, healthy
feelings, flowing out and washing out as they flow the natural sadness
of the soul, cannot take away nor cover up that which really and
everlastingly is, and ever will be, namely, the sentiment of
mournfulness. Nature here is at a funeral forever, and these beauties,
so delicately fashioned, are but flowers in the coffin.
It is a coincidence a little curious that I should have written these
periods above, and then have plunged into just the most lonesome little
valley in all the world to hit upon a graveyard. But there it was, a
gloomy, silent field, enclosed with the merest dry skeleton of a fence,
for no purpose to keep a creature out where no creature is, but just to
make a scratch around the few narrow beds where the dead repose,
unpraised and unnamed, under the lightest possible covering of dust, as
undisturbed as in the deeps of the Atlantic. From the tombless cemetery,
our way back to the vessel over the hills resembled the crossing of
mountains just below the line of perpetual snow. Upon the summit we
encountered a small lake and marshes with water-plants and flowers. At
the eastern extremity of the island, where the rocks break off steeply
some hundreds of feet, we saw every object of the port nearly beneath,
and apparently within stone’s throw. A novel sight to us was the bottom
of the harbor, seen through the clear, greenish water with considerable
distinctness almost from end to end. Patches of sea-weed, dark rocks,
and white gravel, seemed to be lying in the bottom of a shallow mirror,
across which small fishes, large ones in reality, were wandering at
their leisure. This was a picturesque revelation. Upon the surface of
the harbor, the depth of water very nearly shuts out all view of the
bottom. I am beginning to think that a few thousand feet above the
ocean, in a bright day, would enable the eye to pierce it to an
extraordinary depth.