I Cannot Forbear Giving A Conversation Which Took Place At A Meal At This Inn, As It Is Very Characteristic Of The Style Of Persons Whom One Continually Meets With In Travelling In These Colonies:

"I guess you're from the Old Country?" commenced my vis-à-vis; to which recognition of my nationality I humbly bowed.

"What do you think of us here d own east?" "I have been so short a time in these provinces, that I cannot form any just opinion." "Oh, but you must have formed some; we like to know what Old Country folks think of us." Thus asked, I could not avoid making some reply, and said, "I think there is a great want of systematic enterprise in these colonies; you do not avail yourselves of the great natural advantages which you possess." "Well, the fact is, old father Jackey Bull ought to help us, or let us go off on our own hook right entirely." "You have responsible government, and, to use your own phrase, you are on 'your own hook' in all but the name." "Well, I guess as we are; we're a long chalk above the Yankees, though them is fellers as thinks nobody's got their eye teeth cut but themselves."

The self-complacent ignorance with which this remark was made was ludicrous in the extreme. He began again: "What do you think of Nova Scotia and the 'Blue Noses'? Halifax is a grand place, surely!" "At Halifax I found the best inn such a one as no respectable American would condescend to sleep at, and a town of shingles, with scarcely any sidewalks. The people were talking largely of railways and steamers, yet I travelled by the mail to Truro and Pictou in a conveyance that would scarcely have been tolerated in England two centuries ago. The people of Halifax possess the finest harbour in North America, yet they have no docks, and scarcely any shipping. The Nova-Scotians, it is known, have iron, coal, slate, limestone, and freestone, and their shores swarm with fish, yet they spend their time in talking about railways, docks, and the House of Assembly, and end by walking about doing nothing."

"Yes," chimed in a Boston sea-captain, who had been our fellow-passenger from Europe, and prided himself upon being a "thorough-going down-easter," "it takes as long for a Blue Nose to put on his hat as for one of our free and enlightened citizens to go from Bosting to New Orleens. If we don't whip all creation it's a pity! Why, stranger, if you were to go to Connecticut, and tell 'em what you've been telling this ere child, they'd guess you'd been with Colonel Crockett."

"Well, I proceeded, in answer to another question from the New- Brunswicker," if you wish to go to the north of your own province, you require to go round Nova Scotia by sea. I understand that a railway to the Bay of Chaleur has been talked about, but I suppose it has ended where it began; and, for want of a railway to Halifax, even the Canadian traffic has been diverted to Portland."

"We want to invest some of our surplus revenue," said the captain.

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