But we roll onwards, and now are again on the clearings, among the log-cabins of the Highlandmen. Although every settler has his governmental farm, yet nearly the whole of it is still in forest-land. A log hut and cleared-acre lot, with Flora McIvor's grubbing, hoeing, or chopping, while their idle lords and masters trot beside the mail-coach to hear the news, are the only results of the home patronage. At last we come to a gentle declivity, a bridge lies below us, a wider brook; we cross over to find a cosy inn and a rosy landlord on the other side; and John Ormond lays down the ribbons, after a sixty-mile drive, to say: "This is St. Peter's." Now so far us the old-fashioned inns of New Scotland are concerned, I must say they make me ashamed of our own. Soap, sand, and water, do not cost so much as carpets, curtains, and fly-blown mirrors; but still, to the jaded traveller, they have a more attractive aspect. We sit before a snow-white table without a cloth, in the inn-parlor, kitchen, laundry, and dining-room, all in one, just over against the end of the lake; and enjoy a rasher of bacon and eggs with as much gusto as if we were in the midst of a palace of fresco. Ornamental eating has become with us a species of gaudy, ostentatious vulgarity; and a dining-room a sort of fool's paradise. I never think of the little simple meal at St. Peter's now, without tenderness and respect. Here we change--driver, stage, and horses. Still no other passenger. The new whip is a Yankee from the State of Maine; a tall, black-eyed, taciturn fellow, with gold rings in his ears. Now we pass the narrow strip of land that divides Bras d'Or from the ocean. It is only three-quarters of a mile wide between water and water, and look at Enterprise digging out a canal! By the bronze statue of De Witt Clinton, if there are not three of the five-shilling Rob Roys at work, with two shovels, a horse, and one cart! As we approach Canseau the landscape becomes flat and uninteresting; but distant ranges of mountains rise up against the evening sky, and as we travel on towards their bases they attract the eye more and more. Ear-rings is not very communicative. He does not know the names of any of them. Does not know how high they are, but has heard say they are the highest mountains in Nova Scotia. "Are those the mountains of Canseau?" Yes, them's them. So with renewed anticipations we ride on towards the strait "of unrivalled beauty," that travellers say "surpasses anything in America."