HALIFAX. 3 



straggling in every direction ; the streets nar- 

 row and a foot deep in mud ; the lower class 

 of the inhabitants, particularly the black po- 

 pulation, in their appearance squalid and po- 

 verty struck, and the horses very wretched 

 animals. 



Nova Scotia, of which Halifax is the ca- 

 pital, has been a colony of Great Britain 

 for about eighty years. Considerable atten- 

 tion has been paid during that time to its 

 improvement in agriculture, chiefly under the 

 auspices of societies instituted for that laudable 

 purpose, but a rugged and generally unpro- 

 ductive soil has proved a great obstacle, and 

 I could see that coastwards but little impres- 

 sion has been made in overcoming its na- 

 tural poverty. As far as the eye could car- 

 ry me, the country appeared rocky, bare, 

 and sterile ; the timber trees all cut down, 

 and only dwarf firs remaining ; and the land 

 upon the whole much resembling the bleakest 

 parts of the east coast of Scotland, to a resem- 

 blance to which the country may well owe its 

 name. 



