The Friends Who Had First Welcomed Me To The States Accompanied Me To The Vessel, Rendering My Departure From Them The More Regretful, And Scarcely Had I Taken Leave Of Them When A Gun Was Fired, The Lashings Were Cast Off, And Our Huge Wheels Began Their Ceaseless Revolutions.

It was in some respects a cheerless embarkation.

The Indian summer had passed away; the ground was bound by frost; driving showers of sleet were descending; and a cold, howling, wintry wind was sweeping over the waters of Massachusetts Bay. We were considerably retarded between Boston and Halifax by contrary winds. I had retired early to my berth to sleep away the fatigues of several preceding months, and was awoke about midnight by the most deafening accumulation of sounds which ever stunned my ears. I felt that I was bruised, and that the berth was unusually hard and cold; and, after groping about in the pitch-darkness, I found that I had been thrown out of it upon the floor, a fact soon made self-evident by my being rolled across the cabin, a peculiarly disagreeable course of locomotion. It was impossible to stand or walk, and in crawling across to my berth I was assailed by my portmanteau, which was projected violently against me. Further sleep for some hours was impossible. Bang! bang! would come a heavy wave against the ship's side, close to my ears, as if trying the strength of her timbers. Crash! crash! as we occasionally shipped heavy seas, would the waves burst over the lofty bulwarks, and with a fall of seven feet at once come thundering down on the deck above. Then one sound asserted its claim to be heard over all the others - a sound as if our decks were being stove - a gun or some other heavy body had broken loose, and could not be secured. The incessant groaning, splitting, and heaving, and the roar of the water through the scuppers, as it found a tardy egress from the deluged deck, was the result of merely a "head-wind" and "an ugly night."

Late on the second evening of our voyage, I walked on deck. It was the "fag-end" of a gale, and the rain was pouring down upon the slippery planks. Brightly a skyrocket whizzed upwards from a distant ship, and burst in a shower of flame, followed by two others, signalling our old acquaintance the Canada, bound from Liverpool to Boston. We sent up some fireworks in return, and soon lost sight of the friendly light on her paddle-box. She was the only ship that we saw till we reached the Irish coast.

With some of the other passengers, I was on deck at five in the morning, to see the lights on the heads of Halifax harbour. It was dark and intensely cold and wet. A shower of rain had frozen on deck during the night, and as it began to melt the water ran off in little sooty rills. Slowly, shivering figures came on deck, men in envelopes of fur, and oilskin capes and coats, with teeth chattering with cold, with wrinkled brows, and blue cold noses. And slowly lightened the clear eastern sky, and the crescent moon and stars disappeared one by one, and gradually the low pine-clad hills of Nova Scotia stood out in dark relief against the light, when, all of a sudden, "like a glory, the broad sun" rose behind the purple moorlands, and soon hill and town and lake-like bay were bathed in the cold glow of a winter sunrise. It was now half-past seven - the morning-gun had boomed from the citadel, and, in honour of such an important event as the arrival of the European steamer, it might have been supposed that the inhabitants of the quiet town of Halifax would have been astir. In this idea a Scotch friend and I stepped ashore with the intention of visiting an Indian curiosity-shop. In dismal contrast to the early habits which prevail in the American cities, where sleep is yielded to as a necessity, instead of being indulged in as a luxury, we found the shops closed, and, except the people immediately connected with the steamer, none were stirring in the streets but ragged negroes and squalid- looking Indians. A few 'cute enterprising Yankees would soon metamorphose the aspect of this city. As an arrogant American once observed to me, "It would take a 'Blue Nose' (a Nova-Scotian) as long to put on his hat as for one of our free and enlightened citizens to go from Bosting to New Orleens." The appearance of the town was very repulsive. A fall of snow had thawed, and mixing with the dust, store-sweepings, cabbage-stalks, oyster-shells, and other rubbish, had formed a soft and peculiarly penetrating mixture from three to seven inches deep.

Eighteen passengers joined the America at Halifax, and among them I was delighted to welcome my cousins, a party of seven, en route from Prince Edward Island to England. The two babies which accompanied them were rather dreaded in prospect, but I believe that their behaviour gained them general approbation. As dogs are not allowed on the poop or in the saloon, a well-conditioned baby is rather a favourite in a ship; gentlemen of amiable dispositions give it plenty of nursing and tossing, and stewards regard it with benignant smiles, and occasionally offer it "titbits" purloined from dinner.

Among the passengers who joined us at Halifax were Captain Leitch, and three of the wrecked officers of the steamship City of Philadelphia, which was lost on Cape Race three months before. Captain Leitch is a remarkable-looking man, very like the portraits of the Count of Monte Christo. His heroism and presence of mind on the occasion of that terrible disaster were the means of saving the lives of six hundred people, many of whom were women and children. When the ship struck, the panic among this large number of persons was of course awful; but so perfect was the discipline of the crew, and so great their attachment to their commander, that not a cabin-boy left the ship in that season of apprehension without his permission.

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