sealed eyelids, as the first twitter of the lark comes down through the momentary sunshine. The streams which he held so fast have already slipped through his icy fingers, and go stealing along, noiselessly at first, as if afraid to be again imprisoned, until they feel themselves far beyond his reach, when they increase their speed, and go singing through the fields, where there is already some little show of green. The young fry feel a stir of life within them, and wriggling out from the fissures of the sand and gravel, and the hollows of the banks, begin to try their strength against the escaping

current.

And now, everywhere long-hidden objects shew themselves; they seem to have less dread of grim old Winter every day; they go out and in, as if they did not care for him at all; they begin to find that he is not half so terrible as Time. Had his snow been summer dust or desert sand, like that which Time has heaped over buried cities and hidden monuments of the early world, but little of this vegetable and animal life could ever again have struggled back into existence; for saving the trees and shrubs, the earth would have remained brown, and bare, and desolate, to have been only beaten closer together by the rain, or baked harder by the sun, until one great gravestone had been laid over all the grass, and all the flowers; and then Winter would never have awoke, but have been buried where he first lay down. But now the yellow crocus opens its petals, and where it unfolds makes a patch of sunshine on the earth, which dazzles the gaze of old Winter as he turns and looks at it while lying on his side, causing him to wink and blink and rub his eyes, as if doubting whether the golden flush is caused by the sun or the flowers. On the spot from which he has shifted, and on which he has been sleeping, we see the green from whence the coming bluebells will spring, and the downy cups out of which the pale primroses will rise. At the foot of the hedges, along the sheltered banks, the starry celandine is already running a braid of gold, while the open spaces along the underwood are laced with the silver gray of the anemone. Slowly the sap begins to rise, and as old Winter inhales the aroma of the trees, drawing at each sniff a longer breath, he stretches himself, and thousands of little branches instantly seem liberated, on which may be seen a blush of purple, a warmer brown, or a faint flush of green, out of which the black-bird and thrush begin to call. With a yawn, old Winter raises his hand to his ear, as if to make certain of those sounds; and while he listens, the bleating of the lambs becomes stronger, the song of the lark louder and higher up. Then he slowly rises, baring the hidden violets by the stirring of his feet, for he feels that his time is come to depart, and that Spring is somewhere on her way, journeying from the land of flowers, and that he must be gone, lest his course should be impeded, and he should meet on his way the returning swallows over the sunny sea.

come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.' On the sunless dike-side he leaves the last traces of his footsteps in a few patches of lingering snow, above which there is a warm yellow light from the opening and overhanging primroses.

Spring has breathed upon the open spaces where Winter was lately laid, and her warm breath has changed his cold white flakes into showers of snowdrops, millions of starry and silver-rimmed daisies, and long leagues of nodding lilies of the valley. The cuckoo will soon be heard calling from the tall windy trees on the high hill-tops, and at the sound of his voice all the lingering songsters will hurry over the sea, and muster once again in their old cathedrals, the woods, to sing to the shimmering sunlight, which, like golden lamps, burns between the openings of the branches, and flashes on the shrine-like stems of the surrounding trees. For Winter has wakened and gone, nor will he return again until the leaves that are now unfolding have changed from the pale sea-green of Spring and the darker emerald of Summer, into the fiery red and blazing orange of decaying Autumn, and then fallen over the graves of the flowers, and there formed another couch for Winter to spread his snowwhite sheet upon, and on which he will lie down again, and sleep until awakened by the coming of a future Spring. Until then, Winter has retreated, and will hide himself where the face of the deep is frozen.'

THINGS AS THEY ARE IN AMERICA.
NOVA SCOTIA.

STEPPING ashore at Halifax, I found myself among
friends, acquaintances, and a people generally who
may be said to have vied with each other in welcom-
ing me to the new world, whether British or American.
Everything was new, yet familiar. Thousands of
miles from home, I was still, as it were, in England,
with nothing differing around me in language or in
usages from what I had been previously accustomed to.
But without any generic difference there was novelty.
Driving at night through imperfectly lighted streets, I
could see that the houses were principally of wood,
and Woodenness, as I may call it, is really the one
great distinctive feature of America-wooden houses,
wooden door-steps, wooden slates, wooden pillars,
wooden palings, wooden wharfs, and here and there
wooden roads and wooden pavements!

Yet, though wooden, how neat, how beautiful! On looking out in the morning from my window over the town and scenery beyond, I thought I never had seen anything so pretty. No dingy brick with a canopy of smoke, as in London; no dull gray walls incrusted with the soot of centuries, as in the older parts of Edinburgh; but all smart, fresh, new, and seen through an atmo sphere as clear as crystal. A town composed for the most part of detached houses, and painted a clear white, was seen stretching with a sunny exposure down the declivities of a hill to a sea-water lake dotted with

He shakes himself, and hundreds of imprisoned insects, which he had pressed down, rise into the air, and the merry gnats dance up and down before the slowly opening doors, between the crevices of which they catch glimpses of the cloud-woven and primrosecoloured garments of Spring. Grumbling, and follow-islands; while on the further side of the lake, which ing his retreating storm-clouds, he turns his face towards the surly north, catching views, as he goes, of unmelted snow-wreaths in cold, low-lying, and shady places, where he rests himself for a little while, until he is disturbed by some solitary bee that has come in quest of the first opening flowers. With angry look and half-averted head he pauses a moment to listen to the choir of birds that is deepening behind him, and he hears the same voice that he heard three thousand years ago in the days of King Solomon, exclaim: 'Lo! the Winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is

was apparently about two miles wide, there lay a picturesque range of country, ornamented with white cottages, and on the brink of the water the small town of Dartmouth imbosomed among trees. Then the lake itself-quite a Highland firth, reminding one of Loch Fyne-lay glittering in the morning sun, and boats with flowing sails were tacking in different directions on its bosom. All was charming; nor did a nearer inspection alter the original impressions of the scene. Halifax, with wide streets laid out in lines at right angles with each other, an abundant intermixture of trees and

gardens, and a population of forty to fifty thousand souls, is as pleasing in its outlines when seen from the harbour as from the higher grounds. With a fair proportion of church spires, public edifices, and a fort with flag-staff crowning the hill on which it stands, and with a long series of wharfs lined with shipping, it is a complete and respectable-looking city, and may challenge comparison with any town of similar size in America. If an Englishman can entertain little respect for a city whose very churches-one of them a handsome Gothic edifice-are built of wood, he must confess unbounded admiration of the natural beauties of its situation. One of the finest inlets on the American coast is the harbour of Halifax. Running up seven or eight miles from the open sea, it abruptly narrows a short way above the town, and then expanding, becomes a spacious land-locked sheet of water, probably six miles long by from two to three broad. This inner lake, with deep water and good anchorage, is surrounded by ranges of high ground, picturesque cliffs, and overhanging woods of brilliant foliage. Along the Halifax side, and perforating rocky knolls, there is a fine drive which nearly skirts the water; and it is here, on an eminence a few miles from the town, that the late Duke of Kent built and inhabited a neat villa, the site of which is still visible among the trees. No one can see this remarkably beautiful sheet of water, without reflecting that it offers a harbourage of almost unexampled excellence, and will possibly, at some future day, grace the site of a great emporium of commerce. Travellers, who have but a few hours to spare, should not omit a drive along the borders of this inner lake; and when about half-way up, by taking a crossroad to the left, they will soon be brought to a smaller but equally beautiful arm of the sea, bounding the peninsula on which stands the city of Halifax, with its spreading suburbs, open common, gardens, and small farms. A drive of this limited extent is in some cases all that travellers indulge in who visit and describe Nova Scotia. In the course of such a ramble, and pushing here and there into scenes beyond, as I did on two or three occasions, numberless picturesque views are presented; affording, too, such developments of the most ancient series of rocks as may well delight the geologist. Forests of shrubs and tangled woods, amidst which you hear the tinkle of bells hung round the necks of the cottagers' vagrant cows, derive support from a thin soil, reposing on vast masses of granite, while boulders of the same imperishable material are scattered about in endless profusion. Some of these detached blocks are so rounded by attrition as to remain poised on a very narrow basis; so that, without calling in the agency of the Druids, you have rocking-stones fit to be the playthings of a race of giants.

Travelling through these woody and rocky solitudes, and now and then coming to a clearing of a few open fields, the property of an industrious settler, you are Occasionally startled with the apparition of an Indian woman and children loitering around a wigwam of the most slender materials. The sight of these members of the decayed tribe of Mic-macs was to me afflicting to the last degree. It was the spectacle of human nature reduced to the level of the brutes; and that such things existed within an hour's ride of a populous and refined city, seemed to me exceedingly anomalous. The degraded condition of the Indian races, however, is more easily lamented than cured. Much has been done to

99

Christianise and to improve the habits of the Mic-macs, and a spirited society in Halifax is now engaged in this work of spiritual and temporal reclamation, which we must hope will not prove altogether fruitless. At no great distance from the frail huts of these poor Indians, it was my fortune to alight upon a number of little cottages, each with a small clearing about it, and to appearance the abode of an order of beings superior to the native races; for between a habitation which consists of a few sticks hung over with dirty blankets and skins, and a dwelling built of wood, with a door, windows, and chimney, there is a great stride. I had the curiosity to look at the interior of these dwellings, and found them to be occupied by negroes-free, of course, but not seemingly much the better for being at their own disposal. I was informed that a large number of these from the States, during the war of 1812, and landed blacks had been carried away, by one of our admirals, at Halifax, where, along with other coloured refugees, they were little better than a nuisance. blacks live in Halifax, and others in the small cabins I have spoken of as occurring amidst the rural scenery Some of the several employed in various ways; but, as a class, of the neighbourhood. They are not all idlers. I saw they are not well spoken of. In the long winters they this in a country where any man able and willing to work, can never be at a loss for permanent employment require to be supported by charitable contributionsat a wage beyond that of the English labourer!

of attending an agricultural fête, which took place During my stay in Halifax, I had an opportunity tenant-governor of the province. First in the series through the liberal and considerate policy of the lieuof proceedings, there was a ploughing-match, in a of ploughs, each drawn by a pair of horses, there was grassy field outside the town, where, with the best kind bandry. a highly creditable display of provincial taste in hussight of the eager competitors, and also the graceful Wandering about the field, enjoying the spectacle of ladies on horseback and in carriages, and the élite of the provincial government surveying the proceedings, I derived an additional gratification in It formed part of the experimental farm of the late knowing that the spot was in some sort classic ground. John Young, an enthusiastic Scotch agriculturist, who, writing in the local press under the name of Agricola, was the first to stimulate a spirit of improvement in the province, and lived to see the principles and practice of East Lothian husbandry naturalised in this part of America. Men not very aged remember and other edibles came from Ireland. All this has the time when the only vegetables consumed in Halifax been changed, and not a little of the progress in various were imported from Boston, and when butter, pork, branches of culture is due to John Young, whose son, the Hon. William Young, Speaker of the House of Assembly, very appropriately opened the proceedings on the present occasion. On the day after the ploughingmatch, there was an exhibition of horses, cattle, and other animals, also of implements of agriculture, and things, but there could be no doubt that the show some fruits. I do not profess to be a judge of such evinced a high degree of skill in the selection and rearing of livestock, and in conducting the business of the farm. The exhibition, in various ways, afforded a pleasing indication of the interest now taken in rural improvement. It was attended by people from all parts of the province, and while it lasted the town had ball formed part of the programme, possibly it was not cattle alone that brought so many strapping young altogether a holiday aspect. As a public dinner and farmers from their distant fields. Indeed, it would be wonderful constellation of 'youth, beauty, and fashion;' a wonder if it were so, for the ball offered to the eye a

and if any one has taken up the fancy that American ladies are destitute of the charms of Englishwomen, I only pity his ignorance, and would ask him to look in at a Halifax ball.

advantageous, element in the society of the town. The sight of English soldiers on this side of the Atlantic is not very intelligible to the traveller who sees neither disaffection to be kept down, nor a foreign enemy threatening; nor, when he reflects on the enormous expense at which the apparatus of force must necessarily be maintained, does this military system seem consonant with justice to the mother-country, which enjoys nothing in return but the honour of calling Nova Scotia one of her dependencies. It is true that Halifax, with its fort, forms a strong military position; but the experience of the past tells us that fortifications in America have been built only to be left in ruins, or handed over to the very power which they were intended to repel. Nothing produces such melancholy emotions in the Englishman who wanders over the United States, as the frequent spectacle of large military works which cost his country vast sums of money, and are now, in their state of ragged decay, only objects of interest to the draughtsman and the antiquary. Admiring the fort at Halifax as a work of art-its strong walls of granite, its fosses and casemates, its trim grassy mounds, its barracks and water-tanks, all unexceptionable—I must, nevertheless, consider its | erection as a species of error, and look upon the cost of the large military establishment with which it is garrisoned as completely thrown away. It could perto the place. Relying, in one way or another, on the outlay of public money, the people fail to exercise that energetic industry and self-dependence which would naturally be developed were they entirely free from all state patronage. Hospitable and highly polished in manner, the general society of Halifax is, exteriorly, everything that could be wished; but, as might be supposed in the circumstances, there prevails a most unhappy spirit of party politics, which, disuniting those who ought to be friends, substitutes narrow and personal for broad views, and is seriously adverse to the prosperity of the province.

At these entertainments, I was introduced to a number of persons of respectability and influence. Speaking of Halifax, they said it had many recommendations as a place of residence, and as was evidenced by the number of persons who had realised large fortunes, it offered good prospects for really industrious and enterprising men. The only complaint against it, was a general want of that spirit of commercial adventure, so strongly evidenced in the States, where realised capital knows no rest, but, greatly to the public advantage, is continually pushing into new channels. By way of keeping up the conversation, I said I could not help remarking, though scarcely entitled to allude to the circumstance, that there appeared to prevail a much more gay and freeand-easy style of life among persons in business, than I had been accustomed to witness in the old country; instancing the number of young men who kept horses, and lived as if independent of any inducement to assiduous labour. The truth of this was admitted; the explanation being, that the Nova Scotians, besides knowing scarcely anything of taxes, had all the luxuries of life at a comparatively small cost, and were enabled to get through existence in a far more enjoy-haps be shewn that the expenditure is even injurious able manner than was known at home.' The long winters, in which much of the ordinary business is suspended, and sleighing and parties of amusement are the order of the day, were also spoken of as productive of those gay and somewhat unsettled habits I had alluded to. As a natural consequence, emigrants from the old country, trained to mind their affairs, and whose whole aim is to succeed, were described as finding little difficulty in improving their circumstances in the colony.

One of the days during my stay was devoted to a glance at the educational institutions of the town, which I examined dispassionately, without regard to sect or party. At a large school for poor children, supported by the subscriptions of the benevolent, I was overwhelmed by a complimentary and undeserved address from the body of managers. In a Roman Catholic orphan seminary, which appeared to me a very model of order and cleanliness, and in the National School, the general routine of procedure seemed to me highly satisfactory. Latterly, a system of commonschools has been organised in the province, and is supported by the state and local rates. But the very fact that it leaves a number of children in Halifax to be educated by begged money-that is, by chance -is indicative of its defects as a system of universal application.

Among the public buildings to which my attention was drawn, was the handsome edifice used for the meetings of the Provincial Assembly, and for conducting the colonial government, and likewise the mansion occupied by the lieutenant-governor; this last being pleasantly situated in the midst of a garden near the eastern environs of the city. In the main streets there are numerous stores on a large and elegant scale; but the establishments most interesting to a stranger, are certain commercial depôts situated on the wharf's which project into the harbour. Here fishermen are supplied with all the requisites for carrying on their perilous profession, and here are received and stored up the fish that are caught. The quantity of dried fish piled in these establishments, floor above floor, is enormous, though, after all, only a fraction of what is drawn from the adjoining coasts. The export is chiefly to the West Indies.

In the streets of Halifax there was no lack of scarlet uniforms, and this leads me to remark that the military forms no inconsiderable, and I should think no very

At the time of my visit, the subject uppermost in every man's mind, was that of a railway to extend from Halifax across the country to Amherst, on the borders of the province, there to join, on the one hand, with a projected line to St John's, in New Brunswick, and on the other, with a projected line to Quebec. There can be no doubt that such a line is so exceedingly essential, not only for developing the resources of Nova Scotia, but for maintaining its present position, that any delay in maturing and executing it is actually suicidal. Yet, in the face of this pressing necessity, the greatest disunion prevailed. All wanted the railway, but there was a quarrel about details, which was as ridiculous as if the commanders of an army were to go by the ears about some trifling matter of belts and buckles, while they ought to have been gallantly leading their men into action. One party wished the railway to be purely a government measure; another desired that it should be a jointstock speculation, with merely some assistance from the state. To render the confusion still worse, the provincial authorities had received some kind of promise from the English capitalist, Mr Jackson, to the effect, that he would make the required line on some expressed conditions involving a public guarantee. The provincial legislature had already passed acts to authorise certain lines; but even these were inoperative, in consequence of the Home Colonial-office having for several months had the subject in consideration before appending the consent of the crown. One had only to see and hear of all this, and observe that nothing was done, to feel a degree of pity for the people, who were the victims of such strange complications.

As the nearest available harbour to England on the American coast, Halifax seems to be pointed out by nature as the place where much of the steam

تجور

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL.

navigation should properly concentrate. It should, to all appearance, be the portal for traffic between Great Britain and her Canadian possessions; and if these possessions are deemed worthy of being retained, one would think that a means of getting to them by land, without going through a foreign country, would be very desirable. But without railways, Nova Scotia remains an isolated peninsula, interesting to nobody, and utterly cut off from Canada. Already she sees her neighbour, Portland, in Maine, become that medium of intercourse which she might reasonably have expected to be. Recently, as may not perhaps be well known in England, a railway was completed, and opened from Portland to the St Lawrence, by which you may travel from the Atlantic to Montreal, a distance of 292 miles, in twelve hours; and in the course of a few months a branch, now nearly completed, will carry you in the same space of time to Quebec. As Portland is also connected with Boston by railway (five hours), and has become a harbour during winter for two British steamers, it may be assumed that she has, without more ado, become the port for a large section of Canada. As Portland will further be soon connected by railway with New Brunswick, she may be said to fly off at a sweep with various important branches of colonial trade. In this manner, by keenness and selfreliance, does a small town in the United States carry away the traffic of the British possessions, leaving us to sigh over the insanity of colonial squabbles, and the apathy, or at least intricacy, of colonial administration. One thing has been done well in Halifax; and that is, the establishment by a company of an electric telegraphic communication through the province to St John's, New Brunswick, whence the wires are carried on to Portland and other parts in the States. By this line, intelligence arriving by the Cunard steamers from England, is at once despatched over thousands of miles of country. The news brought in by a vessel at night is found next morning in the papers of New Orleans, Cincinnati, Toronto, and a hundred other cities-the whole, as by a flash, being communicated to every newspaper reader in the United States and Canada. On visiting the telegraph-office in Halifax, I could not but admire the rapidity with which messages are sent to and from St John's-the wires of communication, be it remembered, being carried on the tops of rude poles, along miserable highways, and through forests and across water-courses, far from the habitations of civilised

man.

A young person in charge of the telegraph had become so marvellously acute in the ear, that he could distinguish the various intonations made by the ticking noise of the mechanism; and without waiting to see the markings, he could tell you everything that was indicated at the other end of the wires. Being placed in communication with a gentleman in St John's, I requested the ingenious operator to be the interpreter He did so, and inclining his ear to the between us. welcomes you to America, machine, he said: 'Mr and hopes to have the pleasure of seeing you before you quit the country.' The success which has attended the enterprise of this telegraphic company, might surely have pointed out a method for practically carrying out the railway undertakings of the province.

On general grounds, it is to be lamented that Nova Scotia is still without any proper means of internal communication. The province abounds in mineral treasures, that need only to be developed. Perhaps in no part of the world are there beds of excellent coal of such vast dimensions-one of them, at Pictou, I was told, being thirty feet in thickness; iron, in various forms, is likewise found in profusion; and as for gypsum, it is inexhaustible. The fisheries all round the coast, including the shores of Cape Breton, are in themselves mines of unexcavated wealth. In some places, mackerel are said to be in such dense shoals as almost to impede the progress of the boats that try to push their way

through them; and as this fish, thanks to the ingenuity
of a Dublin merchant, can now be kippered and
exported as a delicacy, there can be no limit affixed
to the future trade. The country abounds in lakes
and rivers, suitable for water-power. And the adapta-
tion of certain districts for cattle-rearing and other
purposes, is by no means generally understood.

Nova Scotians complain that their country is spoken
of as being all rocky and barren. This has arisen from the
difficulty of travelling beyond the exterior and ungenial
border of high grounds near the sea-coast. Determined,
if possible, to overcome the obstacles which usually deter
tourists, I made a journey of several days through one
of the most favoured regions of the interior. My object
was to cross the country to Annapolis, and there pro-
cure a steamer to St John's. For this purpose I took
the stage-coach, in the first place, to Windsor, that being
a good point of observation at the distance of forty-five
miles from Halifax. The stage was somewhat of an
oddity. It consisted of a coach-body slung on two
great thick belts of leather, which went beneath it from
stem to stern, and to appearance it had not been cleaned
for years. Inside, it had three cross seats, designed to
accommodate nine persons, to whom tarnished leather
curtains gave an imperfect protection from the weather.
This queer-looking conveyance was driven by a stout
burly man in a shaggy dress, who walked on his knees;
his feet, as I was informed, having been bitten and
shrivelled up by frost.' Thus equipped, we drove off
in tolerable style, our route taking us along the inner
harbour, and thence up the valley of a small river which
The
falls into it at the further extremity. The day was not
warm, but it was clear and pleasant, and was said to
mark the commencement of the Indian summer.
trees, robed in their autumnal tints, were variegated
and lovely. The green leaves of the vines, which climbed
on the white walls and verandas of the cottages, were
already edged with red; the dark spruce and the more
delicate toned lignum vitae were set off by the yellow of
the American elm; the sumach, now leafless, hung out
its ripened purple blossoms to the morning sun; and,
conspicuous over all, shone the brilliant crimson of the
maple. Our way was through natural woods, round
jutting rocks, and along the borders of pretty little
brooks. The land never rose to any great height, but
it was seldom level, and whatever was the character of
the surface, the road was always so bad, that travelling
had in it a curious mixture of the ludicrous and the
painful. Now, I saw the use of the great belts on
which the coach was poised, for on them it pitched and
without damage to itself. Occasionally, on coming to
rolled without serious dislocation to the passengers, and
gently sloping ground, we saw openings in the woods,
with a few fields lately cleared of their crop of Indian
corn, but still dotted over with yellow pumpkins and
squashes now ready for being harvested. These gourd-
like vegetables, scattered about in the fields, were the
most foreign-looking natural objects which came under
notice.

In the course of my journey, I saw no large trees worth speaking of, though it is stated that good timber it was covered with a thicket of wood, so dense as is abundant. Wherever the country was uncleared, to be scarcely penetrable, and into which, without a compass and some local knowledge, it is extremely dangerous to intrude. Much of the wood was small, and only fit for rails or similar inferior purposes; my impression being that it was a second growth filling up the space which had been cleared by fire or the axe. Now and then a huge white pine, scorched and leafless, the survivor of a long-past conflagration, shot up like a giant among dwarfs, or lay prostrate and rotting amidst the underwood. Much of the soil of America may be said to abound with the germs of timber. Unless cleared land be kept under a system of culture, trees spring up; so that the agriculturist is called on