2 EOCKY SHORES OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



early on tlie morning of Tuesday the 7th of August, I 

 landed at Halifax in Nova Scotia. We had thus a 

 pleasant passage of nine days and fifteen hours ; and as 

 we had an agreeable party, we felt almost sorry our 

 voyage had been so short. 



The noble harbour of Halifax, in which all the navies 

 of the world might securely float, is only one of the count- 

 less inlets and basins which the Atlantic coast of Nova 

 Scotia, from Cape Canseau to the Bay of Fundy, every- 

 where presents. The jagged outline of this coast, as 

 seen upon the map, reminds us of the equally indented 

 Atlantic shores of Scandinavia ; and the character of the 

 coast, as he sails along it — the rocky surface, the scanty 

 herbage, and the endless pine forests — recall to the 

 traveller the appearance and natural productions of the 

 same European country. 



The coast of Nova Scotia is indeed very unpromising 

 in an agricultural sense ; and though of the surface of 

 the province there are in reaUty three and a half millions 

 of acres which present to the Norwegian, the Swede, 

 or the Finlander, the rocky soils, scenery, and, generally 

 speaking, the natural productions of his own country, yet 

 both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have in reality 

 been unjustly depressed in European estimation by the 

 character of their shores. The greater number of those 

 who have hitherto returned to Europe from this part of 

 North America, and who have regulated European 

 opinion in regard to it, have seen only the coast line, or 

 the interior of its rocky harbours; and these are cer- 

 tainly as naked and inhospitable as an inhabited country 

 can well be. Those who have sailed along the Baltic 

 shores of Sweden and Finland, or to Gothenburg by the 

 estuary of the Gotha, or among the rocks and inlets of 

 the western coast of Norway, will be able to realise, 

 without visiting them, what the sailor sees on the shores 

 of our American colonies. 



