"Along my father's dykes I roam again, Among the willows by the river-side. These miles of green I know from hill to tide And every creek and river's ruddy stain. Neglected long and shunned, our dead here lain. Here where a people's dearest hope has died, Alone of all their children scattered wide, I scan the sad memorials that remain. The dykes wave with the grass, but not for me, The oxen stir not while this stranger calls. From these new homes upon the green hill-side, Where speech is strange and this new people free, No voice cries out in welcome; for these halls Give food and shelter where I may not bide."
Early next morning the residents of Pierre Island, including old Suzanne, and their American friends and a number of visitors from the hotel were on board a large and powerful tugboat engaged for the purpose of taking them to Grand-Pré. It was a pleasant party. Merry laughter and conversation were heard from every part of the boat. Under the morning sun that filled with glorious light the clear air, the whole blue sheet of the Basin spread before them, and the white fog-veil of Blomidon slowly melted away. The warm day lay open and full of delightful repose, giving of its best everywhere. When at its best the glory of a Nova Scotia day on the Basin of Minas is not to be equalled anywhere for balmy freshness on the swelling flood of a Fundy tide fresh from the ocean. Its cool, salty depths were clean and fleet to-day on its errand to the marsh country of Grand-Pré.
Tide and steam were united in accomplishing the journey between Cumberland Hills and Horton Heights. On the east the tide sped up into the Cobequid Bay, where the land was lost sight of altogether. On the west Blomidon lay like a sleeping beast. Where it sloped down to the beginning of the more level country of farms and orchards the Cornwallis Valley opens up. Here begin the red banks and dyked levels of the marsh country. The blue tide has now its fringe of red run into its pure ocean color from the alluvial deposits that fill all the river ways, many of them running to the sea. As their course took them farther south the fringe became broader, and doubling Kingsport Point long wedges of salt marsh cut into the tide until their sedgy growth lay completely buried by the current. The whole body of water around the boat was now red, and the headlands were of the same color, and were cut down almost perpendicular by the action of the sea.