Inside Were Four Cross-Seats, Intended To Accommodate Twelve
Persons, Who Were Very Imperfectly Sheltered From The Weather.
Behind was
a large rack for luggage, and at the back of the driving-seat was a bench
which held three persons.
The stage was painted scarlet, but looked as if
it had not been washed for a year. The team of six strong white horses was
driven by a Yankee, remarkable only for his silence. About a ton of
luggage was packed on and behind the stage, and two open portmanteaus were
left behind without the slightest risk to their contents.
Twelve people and a baby were with some difficulty stowed in the stage,
and the few interstices were filled up with baskets, bundles, and
packages. The coachman whipped his horses, and we rattled down the uneven
streets of Halifax to a steam ferry-boat, which conveyed the stage across
to Dartmouth, and was so well arranged that the six horses had not to
alter their positions.
Our road lay for many miles over a barren, rocky, undulating country,
covered with var and spruce trees, with an undergrowth of raspberry, wild
rhododendron, and alder. We passed a chain of lakes extending for sixteen
miles, their length varying from one to three miles, and their shores
covered with forests of gloomy pine. People are very apt to say that Nova
Scotia is sterile and barren, because they have not penetrated into the
interior. It is certainly rather difficult of access, but I was by no
means sorry that my route lay through it. The coast of Nova Scotia is
barren, and bears a very distinct resemblance to the east of Scotland. The
climate, though severe in winter and very foggy, is favourable both to
health and vegetation. The peach and grape ripen in the open air, and the
cultivation of corn and potatoes amply repays the cultivator. A great part
of the country is still covered with wood, evidently a second growth, for,
wherever the trees of the fir tribe are cut down or destroyed by fire,
hard-wood trees spring up.
So among the maple, the American elm, and the purple-blossomed sumach, the
huge scorched and leafless stems of pines would throw up their giant arms
as if to tell of some former conflagration. In clearings among these
woods, slopes of ground are to be seen covered with crops of oats and
maize, varied with potatoes and pumpkins. Wherever the ground is unusually
poor on the surface, mineral treasures abound. There are beds of coal of
vast thickness; iron in various forms is in profusion, and the supply of
gypsum is inexhaustible. Many parts of the country are very suitable for
cattle-rearing, and there are "water privileges" without end in the shape
of numerous rivers. I have seldom seen finer country in the colonies than
the large tract of cleared undulating land about Truro, and I am told that
it is far exceeded by that in the neighbourhood of Windsor. Wherever
apple-trees were planted they seemed to flourish, and the size and flavour
of their fruit evidences a short, hot summer. While the interior of the
country is so fertile, and is susceptible of a high degree of improvement,
it is scarcely fair in the Nova-Scotians to account for their backwardness
by pointing strangers to their sterile and iron-bound coast. But they are
a moral, hardy, and loyal people; none of our colonial fellow-subjects are
more attached to the British crown, or more ready to take up arms in its
defence.
I was greatly pleased with much that I heard, and with the little I saw of
the Nova-Scotians. They seemed temperate, sturdy, and independent, and the
specimens we had of them in the stage were civil, agreeable, and
intelligent.
After passing the pretty little village of Dartmouth, we came upon some
wigwams of birch-bark among the trees. Some squaws, with papooses strapped
upon their backs, stared vacantly at us as we passed, and one little
barefooted Indian, with a lack of apparel which showed his finely moulded
form to the best advantage, ran by the side of the coach for two or three
miles, bribed by coppers which were occasionally thrown to him.
A dreary stage of eighteen miles brought us to Shultze's, a road-side inn
by a very pretty lake, where we were told the "coach breakfasted."
Whether Transatlantic coaches can perform this, to us, unknown feat, I
cannot pretend to say, but we breakfasted. A very coarse repast was
prepared for us, consisting of stewed salt veal, country cheese, rancid
salt butter, fried eggs, and barley bread; but we were too hungry to find
fault either with it, or with the charge made for it, which equalled that
at a London hotel. Our Yankee coachman, a man of monosyllables, sat next
to me, and I was pleased to see that he regaled himself on tea instead of
spirits.
We packed ourselves into the stage again with great difficulty, and how
the forty-eight limbs fared was shown by the painful sensations
experienced for several succeeding days. All the passengers, however, were
in perfectly good humour, and amused each other during the eleven hours
spent in this painful way. At an average speed of six miles an hour we
travelled over roads of various descriptions, plank, corduroy, and sand;
up long heavy hills, and through swamps swarming with mosquitoes.
Every one has heard of corduroy roads, but how few have experienced their
miseries! They are generally used for traversing swampy ground, and are
formed of small pine-trees deprived of their branches, which are laid
across the track alongside each other. The wear and tear of travelling
soon separates these, leaving gaps between; and when, added to this, one
trunk rots away, and another sinks down into the swamp, and another tilts
up, you may imagine such a jolting as only leather springs could bear. On
the very worst roads, filled with deep holes, or covered with small
granite boulders, the stage only swings on the straps.
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