FRESH COMPLEXIONS OF THE PEOPLE. 3 



But the interior parts of these provinces are not 

 represented by these barren borders. Though they do 

 contain large tracts of poor and difficult land, yet rich 

 districts recur at intervals, which rival in natural fertil- 

 ity the most productive counties of Great Britain. The 

 colonists complain, with reason, that the evil opinion 

 entertained of them has diverted the tide of English 

 settlers, English capital, and English enterprise, to 

 more southern or western regions, not more favoured by 

 nature than they are themselves. 



A European stranger who, on landing in Halifax, 

 looks for the sallow visage and care-worn expression 

 which distinguish so many of the inhabitants of the north- 

 ern States of the Union, will be pleased to see the fresh 

 and blooming complexions of the females of all classes, 

 and I may say of almost all ages. Youth flourishes 

 longer here, and we scarcely observe, in stepping from 

 England to Nova Scotia, that we have as yet reached a 

 climate which bears heavier upon young looks and female 

 beauty than our own. 



The day of my landing at Halifax was a fete-day 

 among the Roman Catholic schools. Twelve hundred 

 children, in holiday dresses, were marching in long pro- 

 cession by nine in the morning, with flags and banners 

 and music, along the main street of the city, and thence 

 under a triumphal arch of flowers and an avenue of green 

 pine-trees, planted for the occasion, to a steamboat which 

 was in waiting to convey them across the bay to M'Nab's 

 Island, where the amusements of the day were provided. 

 As music and dancing and refreshments were among the 

 entertainments, this fete attracted a large assemblage of 

 all parties, whom rigid religious views did not restrain 

 from countenancing a public display of the Roman 

 Catholic body. As a stranger, I was grateful to the 

 provincial secretary, Mr Howe, for an invitation to 

 accompany him and his family in the afternoon to the 



