CHAPTER LIII.
WESTERN NEWFOUNDLAND.—THE BAY, THE ISLANDS, AND THE HIGHLANDS OF ST. JOHNS.—INGORNACHOIX BAY.
Newfoundland now lifts its blue summits along the southeast sky, a kind of Catskill heights, with here and there patches of snow, that recall to mind the White Mountain House. In the course of the afternoon, we pass them, and find that they are the highlands of St. Johns, the loftiest, I believe, in the island, and bound the bay called by the same lovely name.
What a region for romantic excursion! Yonder are wooded mountains with a sleepy atmosphere, and attractive vales, and a fine river, the river Castor, flowing from a country almost unexplored; and here are green isles spotting the sea—the islands of St. Johns. Behind them is an expanse of water, alive with fish and fowl, the extremes of which are lost in the deep, untroubled wilderness. A month would not suffice to find out and enjoy its manifold and picturesque beauties, through which wind the deserted trails of the Red Indian, now extinct or banished. Why they should have left, with all these unappropriated breadths of solitude for their inheritance, I do not precisely understand. There are mournful tales told of their wrongs and their revenges, the old story of contests between the civilized and the savage.
Yonder, at the termination of the highlands, is a cape, no matter what is its French name, since directly behind it is a bay with an Indian name tough enough to last one round a dozen capes—the Bay of Ingornachoix, noted for its harbors, inlets, and pretty streams, another fine region for the summer tourist. Beyond the woody distances rising in the east, there lies a lengthy lake, the centre of a little world of interest to the lovers of nature and the picturesque. It is no great distance across the island here to the shores of White Bay, a remote expanse of waters, to which few but fishermen have any occasion to penetrate.
As the evening advances the wind strengthens, and bears us rapidly along the coast. Thus we are encircling Newfoundland, and finding spots of beauty, to which, if we may not return ourselves, we can direct others of like taste and sentiment. We come down from the cold air, and from looking at a fine aurora now playing in the skies, and gleaming by reflection in the waves, and sit by the cabin lights, and talk and write, inspect the sketches, and listen to the roar of winds and surges—rather melancholy music.