Of course there are many walks and drives—­on the whole the most delightful of Malbaie’s diversions.  The favourite walk is to “Beulah.”  A generation that does not read its Bible as it should may need to be told that Beulah is the name of the land no more desolate in which the Lord delighteth; some Bible reader so named a spot on the mountain where one looks out far, far, afield in every direction for immense distances.  It may be reached by a forest path straight up the mountain side from Pointe au Pic.  We go through spruce and birch woods till we reach an opening where we look out northward on rounded mountain tops blue, silent, immeasurable, spreading away, one might almost fancy to the North Pole itself, so endless seems their mass.  On beautiful turf through woods, then by a cow path across a bog, the path leads until a bare hill top lies full in view.  This is Beulah.  Standing there one seems to have the whole world at one’s feet.  When Petrarch had climbed Mount Ventoux, near Avignon, the first man for half a century to do so, the scene overwhelmed him; thoughts of the deeper meaning of life rose before his mind; he drew from his pocket St. Augustine and read:  “Men go about to wonder at the height of the mountains and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers and the circuit of the ocean and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not.”  I never stand on “Beulah” without thinking of this passage.  Far away to the distant south shore, and up and down the river we can survey a stretch of eighty or ninety miles.  We stand in the midst of a sea of mountains and look landward across deep valleys in all directions with the ranges rising tier on tier beyond.

[Illustration:  THE GOLF LINKS AT MURRAY BAY]

Among diversions for men golf, in spite of a certain reaction, has still the chief place.  The club house is on the west shore of the bay.  One plays out northward.  The players zigzag here and there among curious earth mounds formed by the eddying swirl of water when the river’s current held high carnival over these level stretches.  Then the course leads up to the higher slope and mounts steadily, until, at the farthest hole, a considerable height has been reached.  As one turns back towards the river he faces a wonder scene of changing grey and blue and green and white.  The smoke of passing steamers floats lazily in the air; they take the deep channel by the south shore and are a dozen miles away.  It is usually a silent world that one looks out upon; but when there is a north-east wind great green waves come rolling in upon the sandy shore of the bay and fill the air with their undertone.

Even the rainy days have their own pleasures.  One is glad of its excuse to sit before a crackling fire of birch wood and read.  When the rain has ceased and the sun comes out, looking across to Cap a l’Aigle and up the river valley one sees new beauties.  The mist disperses slowly.  First it leaves bare the rounded mountain tops; they stand out dark, massive, with bases shrouded still in fleecy white.  When the sun grows strong, river and valley are soon clear again, though the outlines are still a little softened.  Up over the sand and boulders of the bay comes the rising tide changing sombre brown to shining blue.  It rushes noisily across the bar at the bay’s mouth a few hundred yards away.