Dirty They Were Then, Though The Weather Was Very Dry, For Oyster-Shells,
Fish Heads And Bones, Potato-Skins, And
Cabbage-stalks littered the roads;
but dirty was a word which does not give the faintest description of the
almost
Impassable state in which I found them, when I waded through them
ankle-deep in mud some months afterwards.
We took apartments for two days at the Waverley House, a most comfortless
place, yet the best inn at Halifax. Three hours after we landed, the
Canada fired her guns, and steamed off to Boston; and as I saw her
coloured lights disappear round the heads of the harbour, I did not feel
the slightest regret at having taken leave of her for ever. We remained
for two days at Halifax, and saw the little which was worth seeing in the
Nova-Scotian capital. I was disappointed to find the description of the
lassitude and want of enterprise of the Nova-Scotians, given by Judge
Halliburton, so painfully correct. Halifax possesses one of the deepest
and most commodious harbours in the world, and is so safe that ships need
no other guide into it than their charts. There are several small
fortified islands at its mouth, which assist in its defence without
impeding the navigation. These formidable forts protect the entrance, and
defend the largest naval depot which we possess in North America. The town
itself, which contains about 25,000 people, is on a small peninsula, and
stands on a slope rising from the water's edge to the citadel, which is
heavily armed, and amply sufficient for every purpose of defence. There
are very great natural advantages in the neighbourhood, lime, coal, slate,
and minerals being abundant, added to which Halifax is the nearest port to
Europe.
Yet it must be confessed that the Nova-Scotians are far behind, not only
their neighbours in the States, but their fellow-subjects in Canada and
New Brunswick. There are capacious wharfs and roomy warehouses, yet one
laments over the absence of everything like trade and business. With the
finest harbour in North America, with a country abounding in minerals, and
coasts swarming with fish, the Nova-Scotians appear to have expunged the
word progress from their dictionary - still live in shingle houses, in
streets without side walks, rear long-legged ponies, and talk largely
about railroads, which they seem as if they would never complete, because
they trust more to the House of Assembly than to their own energies.
Consequently their astute and enterprising neighbours the Yankees, the
acute speculators of Massachusetts and Connecticut, have seized upon the
traffic which they have allowed to escape them, and have diverted it to
the thriving town of Portland in Maine. The day after we landed was one of
intense heat, the thermometer stood at 93° in the shade. The rays of a
summer sun scorched the shingle roof of our hotel, and, penetrating the
thin plank walls, made the interior of the house perfectly unbearable.
There were neither sunshades nor Venetian blinds, and not a tree to shade
the square white wooden house from an almost tropical heat. When I came
into the parlour I found Colonel H - - stretched on the sofa, almost
expiring with heat, my cousin standing panting before the window in his
shirtsleeves, and his little boy lying moaning on the hearthrug, with his
shoes off, and his complexion like that of a Red Indian. One of our party
had been promenading the broiling streets of Halifax without his coat! A
gentleman from one of the Channel Islands, of unsophisticated manners and
excellent disposition, who had landed with us en route to a town on the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, had fancied our North American colonies for ever
"locked in regions of thick-ribbed ice," and consequently was abundantly
provided with warm clothing of every description. With this he was
prepared to face a thermometer at twenty degrees below zero.
But when he found a torrid sun, and the thermometer at 93° in the shade,
his courage failed him, and, with all his preconceived ideas overthrown by
the burning experience of one day, despair seized on him, and his
expressions of horror and astonishment were coupled with lamentations over
the green fertility of Jersey. The colonel was obliged to report himself
at head-quarters in his full uniform, which was evidently tight and hot;
and after changing his apparel three times in the day, apparently without
being a gainer, he went out to make certain meteorological inquiries,
among others if 93° were a common temperature.
The conclusion he arrived at was, that the "climate alternates between the
heat of India and the cold of Lapland."
We braved the heat at noonday in a stroll through the town, for, from the
perfect dryness of the atmosphere, it is not of an oppressive nature. I
saw few whites in the streets at this hour. There were a great many
Indians lying by the door-steps, having disposed of their baskets, besoms,
and raspberries, by the sale of which they make a scanty livelihood. The
men, with their jet-black hair, rich complexions, and dark liquid brown
eyes, were almost invariably handsome; and the women, whose beauty departs
before they are twenty, were something in the "Meg Merrilies" style.
When the French first colonised this country, they called it "Acadie."
The tribes of the Mic-Mac Indians peopled its forests, and, among the dark
woods which then surrounded Halifax, they worshipped the Great Spirit, and
hunted the moose-deer. Their birch-bark wigwams peeped from among the
trees, their squaws urged their light canoes over the broad deep harbour,
and their wise men spoke to them of the "happy hunting grounds." The
French destroyed them not, and gave them a corrupted form of Christianity,
inciting their passions against the English by telling them that they were
the people who had crucified the Saviour. Better had it been for them if
battle or pestilence had swept them at once away.
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