aoo 



THE SEA. 



and to have observed the country and 'he people with much attention; pray, what is your 

 opinion of the present state and future prospects of Halifax?- 1 'If you will tell me/ 

 said he, c when the folks there will wake up, then I can answer you ; but they are fast 

 asleep. As to the province, it's a splendid province, and calculated to go ahead; it will 

 grow as fast as a Virginny gall and they grow so amazing fast, if you put one of your 

 arms round one of their necks to kiss them, by the time you've done they've growed up 

 into women. It's a pretty province, I tell you, good above and better below : surface 



THE ISLAND OF ASCENSION. 



covered with pastures, meadows, woods, and a nation sight of water privileges; and under 

 the ground full of mines. It puts me in mind of the soup at Treemoni house good enough 

 at top, but dip down and you have the riches 'the coal, the iron ore, the gypsum, and 

 what not. As for Halifax, it's well enough in itself, though no great shakes neither ; a 

 few sizeable houses, with a proper sight of small ones, like half-a-dozen old hens with 

 their broods of young chickens : but the people, the strange critters, they are all asleep. 

 They walk in their sleep, and talk in their sleep, and what they say one day they forget 

 the next; they say they were dreaming.'' This was first published in England in 1838; 

 all accounts now speak of Halifax as a well-built, paved, and cleanly city, and of its 

 inhabitants as enterprising. 



