Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/360

302 side of the St. John's estuary, is Point St. Peter. Between them the gulf flows inland for 20 miles and forms the winding Basin of Gaspé. The inlet's irregular shape protects it from outside storms. Its enveloping hills spread noble terraces for the repose of village and farm. The radiant air enhances the azure of the water and the motley tints of pasture and glade and billowy groves of evergreen, and brings into relief the ridge of the gulf range, whose silhouette makes a jagged blue mark against the eastern sky.

Gaspé Village is across the water from the railway station. A gasolene ferry plies between the two shores. Above the docks and the shops and warehouses that cluster on the low bank, a bluff rises steeply to the single street which passes the length of the hilly settlement. Gaspé has for many years been the chosen summer residence of discriminating Canadians and Americans. Some of them have built mansions and surrounded them with parks and gardens. Others are content to taste Gaspé delights as guests of Baker's Hotel, a house whose felicitous personality has been reflected in an earlier chapter. A more restful port is not to be imagined. Merely to sense remoteness from throngs and proximity to an utter wilderness is exhilarating. Fair prospects from bluffs and