We are now entering Battle Harbor, a most romantic nook of water, or Strait rather, between the islands forming the south side of the bay St. Louis. Cariboo Island fronts to the north on the bay, five or six miles, I should guess, and is a rugged mountain-pile of dark gray rock, rounded in its upper masses, and slashed along its shores with abrupt chasms. It drops short off, at its eastern extremity, several hundred feet, into a narrow gulf of deep water. This is Battle Harbor. The billowy pile of igneous rock, perhaps two hundred and fifty feet high, lying between this quiet water and the broad Atlantic, is Battle Island, and the site of the town. We pass a couple of wild islets, lying seaward, as we glide gently along toward our anchorage. There is little to be seen but hard, iron-bound bay, and yet we are all out, gazing abroad with silent curiosity, as if we were entering the Golden Horn. Up runs the Union Jack, and flings its ancient crosses to the sun and breeze, and the fishermen look down upon us from their rude dwellings perched among the crags, and wonder who, and from whence we are. For the moment, nothing seems to be going on but standing still and looking, men, women, and children. And now they will look and wonder still more: up run the Stars and Stripes, higher up than all, and overfloat the flag of England, and salute the sun and cliffs of Labrador. The missionary waves his handkerchief—waves his hat—calls pleasantly to a group upon the nearest shore. They look, and hearken, in the stillness of uncertainty. Instantly there is a movement of recognition. The people know it is their pastor. The intelligence has caught, and runs from house to house. Down drop the sails, rattling down the masts; the anchor plunges, and the cable runs, runs rattling and ringing from its coil. Round the vessel swings in line with the breeze, and comes to its repose. We congratulate the missionary on his safe return, while he points us feelingly to the little church and parsonage, just above us on the mossy hill-side, and bids us welcome as long as we shall find it agreeable to remain. With light and thankful hearts, and pleasant anticipations, we prepare to go ashore, and take our first run upon the hills.
CHAPTER XXXII.
BATTLE ISLAND AND ITS SCENERY.
We sit down upon the summit of Battle Island, after a zigzag scramble up its craggy side, and talk and sketch and scribble, as we rest and look upon the blue, barren sea, and the brown and more barren continent, with its mountains of desert rock. With all this desolateness, the approaching sunset and the warm skies, the stern headlands, the white icebergs and bleak islands, and the bay with its rays and points of water, like a vast spangle on the savage landscape, all compose a picture of singular novelty and grandeur; at the present moment, wonderfully heightened in beauty and spirit by a distant shower, itself a spectacle of brilliancy and darkness sweeping up from the north. Mr. Hutchinson here joins us, looking all the pleasure that he feels, and points out what is visible of the lengthy, but narrow field of his religious labors. The harbor, with its vessels and various buildings, lies quite below. One could very nearly throw a stone over the little church spire, and shoot a rifle ball into the cliffs opposite. The air is spiced with the most delicate odors, which invites us to a short ramble in search of flowers, after which we descend to the parsonage for tea.
I have stolen out upon the small front piazza with a chair, to enjoy the warm sunshine and the sights of a Labrador village. The parsonage, which has been closed for more than a year past, has been cleaned and put in order by some kind Esquimaux parishioners, and looks neat and comfortable. H—— has taken us all through, from room to room—to the kitchen, pantry, bed-rooms, parlor, which serves also for dining-room, library and study, to the school-room up stairs, which is used at times as a chapel. As we passed the house clock, the pointer still upon the hour where it stopped more than eighteen months ago, the painter wound it up, and gave it a fresh start and the true time, which it began to measure by loud and cheerful ticks, as if conscious that life and spirit had returned again to the vacant dwelling. On the shelf, over the fireplace, lay a prayer-book, the gift of Wordsworth to his nephew, with an affectionate inscription on a fly-leaf, in his own handwriting, while near by stood a couple of small pictures of the poet and his wife.
As some fishermen are now drawing in their capelin seine, we are going to run down and see the sight. And quite a pretty sight it was. Not less than a barrel or two were inclosed, which they dipped with a small scoop-net into their boat, where they lay for a moment, fluttering like so many little birds of gaudy plumage under the fowler’s net. The males and females of these delicate fishes, are called here, very comically, cocks and hens. As our boat, just then, came across from the vessel, the fishers gave us a mess for breakfast, all of half a bushel, which we carried over at once. At the sight of several fine salmon, on the fishing-flake close by, fresh from the net, the poor little capelin sank into immediate contempt. We must have a salmon or two. It was a question whether we could not eat several. It resulted in the purchase of one of sixteen pounds, at the cost of a dollar. We were pulled back immediately in order to sup with Mr. Hutchinson, and spend the remainder of the long, light evening in running over Battle Island. I shall not yield to the temptation to dwell upon the brilliant sunset which we saw from the summit rocks. Its glories were reflected in the bay, and shed upon the grim wilderness, dissolving all its gloomy ruggedness into softest beauty. No language can depict the still and solemn splendor of the icebergs, reposing upon the burnished waters. Temples and mausoleums of dazzling white, warming into tints of pink, or deepening on their shaded side into the sweetest azure, seemed to be standing upon a mighty mirror with their images below. I thought of that standing on the sea of glass, in the glorious visions of St. John, and was filled with emotions of wonder and admiration. The words of the psalmist could hardly fail to be remembered: “These men see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.”
One would think that all is couleur de rose in these lands beyond the reach of fashionable summer tourists. Let him remember that nature here blooms, beautifies, and bears for the entire year, in a few short weeks. We are in the very flush of that transient and charming time. Believe me, when I speak of the plants and flowers, shrubbery and mosses. At this moment, the rocky isle, bombarded by the ocean, and flayed by the sword of the blast for months in the year, is a little paradise of beauty. There are fields of mossy carpet that sinks beneath the foot, with beds of such delicate flowers as one seldom sees.
There is a refined delicacy in the odor, which the ordinary flora of warmer climes seldom has. Some rare exotic, reared with cost, and pampered by all the appliances of art, may suggest the subtle spirit of these tiny blossoms. It steals upon the sense of smell with the indescribable tenderness of the music of the æolian harp upon the ear. As I enjoy it, I know that I cannot paint it to the reader, and that I shall probably never “look upon its like again.” It is very likely that the cool and very pure air, a refinement of our common atmosphere, has much to do with it.
In our stroll, we found banks of snow still sleeping in the fissures above the showering of the surf, and peeping out from beneath their edges were clusters of pretty flowers. As we returned in the twilight, upon the mournful stillness of which broke the voice of the surge, I lingered upon the cliffs to listen to the wood-thrush, the same most plaintive and sweet bird that sings in the Catskill mountain woods, at dusk and in the early morning. The pathos of its wild melody stole in upon the heart, waking “thoughts too deep for tears,” and calling up a throng of tender memories of Cole and others, with whom the songster, the hour, and mountain scenery are forever associated. Startled by the voices of my companions, one a nephew of the famous poet, and the other a pupil of the painter scarcely less renowned, I hastened to join them at the humble parsonage below the cliffs, when we went across to the vessel, and united, for the last time in the cabin, in those pleasant devotions which we had enjoyed, morning and evening, since our departure from St. Johns.