“It’s a comfort to know that, at any rate,” said Tom.  “We’ll give you enough of that before we leave, especially as we know it don’t annoy you.”

“I don’t know how it is,” said the captain, solemnly, “but I begin to feel a sort of somethin towards you youngsters that’s very absorbin.  It’s a kine o’ anxious fondness, with a mixtoor of indulgent tenderness.  How ever I got to contract sech a feelin beats me.  I s’pose it’s bein deprived of my babby, an exiled from home, an so my vacant buzzom craves to be filled.  I’ve got a dreadful talent for doin the pariential, an what’s more, not only for doin the pariential, but for feelin of it.  So you boys, ef ever you see me a doin of the pariential towards youns, please remember that when I act like an anxious an too indulgent parient towards youns, it’s because I feel like one.”

For some hours they traversed the waters, carried swiftly on by the united forces of the wind and tide.  At last they found themselves close by Blomidon, and under his mighty shadow they sailed for some time.  Then they doubled the cape, and there, before them, lay a long channel—­the Straits of Minas, through which the waters pour at every ebb and flood.  Their course now lay through this to the Bay of Fundy outside; and as it was within two hours of the low tide, the current ran swiftly, hurrying them rapidly past the land.  Here the scene was grand and impressive in the extreme.  On one side arose a lofty, precipitous cliff, which extended for miles, its sides scarred and tempest-torn, its crest fringed with trees, towering overhead many hundreds of feet, black, and menacing, and formidable.  At its base was a steep beach, disclosed by the retreating tide, which had been formed by the accumulated masses of rock that had fallen in past ages from the cliffs above.  These now, from the margin of the water up to high-water mark, were covered with a vast growth of sea-weed, which luxuriated here, and ran parallel to the line of vegetation on the summit of the cliff.  On the other side of the strait the scene was different.  Here the shores were more varied; in one place, rising high on steep precipices, in others, thrusting forth black, rocky promontories into the deep channel; in others again, retreating far back, and forming bays, round whose sloping shores appeared places fit for human habitation, and in whose still waters the storm-tossed bark might find a secure haven.

As they drifted on, borne along by the impetuous tide, the shores on either side changed, and new vistas opened before them.  At last they reached the termination of the strait, the outer portal of this long avenue, which here was marked by the mighty hand of Nature in conspicuous characters.  For here was the termination of that long extent of precipitous cliff which forms the outline of Blomidon; and this termination, abrupt, and stern, and black, shows, in a concentrated form, the power of wind and wave.