The people were Highlanders, and spoke little English; we had struck the beginning of the Gaelic settlement.  From here to Hogamah we should encounter only the Gaelic tongue; the inhabitants are all Catholics.  Very civil people, apparently, and living in a kind of niggardly thrift, such as the cold land affords.  We saw of this family the old man, who had come from Scotland fifty years ago, his stalwart son, six feet and a half high, maybe, and two buxom daughters, going to the hay-field,—­good solid Scotch lassies, who smiled in English, but spoke only Gaelic.  The old man could speak a little English, and was disposed to be both communicative and inquisitive.  He asked our business, names, and residence.  Of the United States he had only a dim conception, but his mind rather rested upon the statement that we lived “near Boston.”  He complained of the degeneracy of the times.  All the young men had gone away from Cape Breton; might get rich if they would stay and work the farms.  But no one liked to work nowadays.  From life, we diverted the talk to literature.  We inquired what books they had.

“Of course you all have the poems of Burns?”

“What’s the name o’ the mon?”

“Burns, Robert Burns.”

“Never heard tell of such a mon.  Have heard of Robert Bruce.  He was a Scotchman.”

This was nothing short of refreshing, to find a Scotchman who had never heard of Robert Burns!  It was worth the whole journey to take this honest man by the hand.  How far would I not travel to talk with an American who had never heard of George Washington!

The way was more varied during the next stage; we passed through some pleasant valleys and picturesque neighborhoods, and at length, winding around the base of a wooded range, and crossing its point, we came upon a sight that took all the sleep out of us.  This was the famous Bras d’Or.

The Bras d’Or is the most beautiful salt-water lake I have ever seen, and more beautiful than we had imagined a body of salt water could be.  If the reader will take the map, he will see that two narrow estuaries, the Great and the Little Bras d’Or, enter the island of Cape Breton, on the ragged northeast coast, above the town of Sydney, and flow in, at length widening out and occupying the heart of the island.  The water seeks out all the low places, and ramifies the interior, running away into lovely bays and lagoons, leaving slender tongues of land and picturesque islands, and bringing into the recesses of the land, to the remote country farms and settlements, the flavor of salt, and the fish and mollusks of the briny sea.  There is very little tide at any time, so that the shores are clean and sightly for the most part, like those of fresh-water lakes.  It has all the pleasantness of a fresh-water lake, with all the advantages of a salt one.  In the streams which run into it are the speckled trout, the shad, and the salmon; out of its depths are hooked the cod and the mackerel,