Mile upon mile of the land over which the train travels is uninhabited, and you cannot help thinking how strange it is that this delightful country has not been cultivated, and how you would like to bring out some of the teeming millions eking out a miserable existence in the crowded cities of Europe.
From Deer Lake to Port-aux-Basques the railway passes through mountain, vale, and forest and the scenery lying between Long Range and the Gulf of St. Lawrence is full of beauty and variety. As you step on to the steamship Bruce to cross the Cabot Strait for Canada, you look back upon the old English Colony of Newfoundland with the happiest of recollections, mingled with a good deal of genuine regret, for you have found the Newfoundlanders a great-hearted people, the air exhilarating, and the scenery inspiring. It is then that you understand why the Newfoundlander, though he may leave his beautiful “sea-girt isle” for a season, finds no rest for the sole of his foot outside the land that gave him birth.
MARBLE MOUNTAIN, HUMBER RIVER.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NORWAY OF THE NEW WORLD
By so many generations has Newfoundland been looked upon as an island of damp and dreary swamp that it will be many years before that erroneous impression is dispelled. And yet what a beautiful land it is! The inhabitants themselves do not fully appreciate the wealth of scenery with which Providence has so abundantly enriched them. It is true that one is not met by the garden-like scenery of England, to the making of which so many human hands have been devoted; but there is probably no country in the world that can present such a sublime panorama of natural scenery.
The massive rocks have been carved into myriads of picturesque angles by the merciless swish of the waves that for thousands of years have rolled and rolled across the broad Atlantic. The beauty of the velvet moss on the inland slopes of these rocks is best revealed when the play of the sea-wind creates on its surface a thousand ripples of light and shade. In the rich blue water below the outlines of the rocks are reflected, and a few yards out at sea a flock of gulls can usually be seen, either rising and falling with the movements of the waves or wheeling around one of the smaller rocks that only at intervals shows its head above the water.
If you were to stand upon the rocks near St. John’s Harbour in the early spring, you would catch a glimpse of the fishing-fleet off to the grounds on its annual expedition. Their white sails frolic in the breeze, and as they dip their bows in the troughs between the heaving billows they present a sight the enchantment of which is not readily forgotten. Or you may see the sealing-fleet, at the sight of which you wonder how many will return safely to port, and how many, alas! may be pounded to pieces by the great boulders of ice that race along with break-neck speed under the impetus of the Arctic current.
Probably the prettiest scenery is to be found in the region of the Humber River and Valley. The Humber River is on the west coast. It runs through a spacious area of forest, valley, and field. Under the shadow of the spruce-trees skirting the river the sensitive caribou may be seen taking their morning drink; or in the evening they may be seen on a treeless patch at the top of a hill, stretching their slender legs, between you and the setting sun. The banks of the river are flanked with clusters of azalea and blue-berry, and every twist of the stream introduces you to a new, alluring piece of scenery. Sometimes you are awed by the giant rocks towering above your head, their white granite ribs glimmering in the sunlight. Now it is an open space, through which a long procession of trees, bowing their tips to the east, extend a welcome to the fox, the bear, and the Arctic hare; now it is a wilderness of tree-stumps that stand motionless in a vast expanse of luxuriant undergrowth and infant trees struggling to maintain life in the company of their long-dead ancestors. By many tourists these remnants of forest fires are looked upon as disfigurements of the landscape; but they have a beauty that is peculiar to all dead things—the beauty of death.