113 NOVA SCOTIA. 



" Evangeline." Within six hours after their arrival at Wind- 

 sor the vast volume of water will have rolled back to the 

 sea, leaving an immense hollow basin as empty as the crater 

 of a volcano, and a trickling rivulet, the only trace of its ex- 

 pended forces. From Halifax there is communication by 

 railway to Truro and Pictou, one hundred and thirteen 

 miles ; from Pictou by steamer to Charlottetown and Sum- 

 merside. Prince Edward's Island, and thence by same con- 

 veyance to Shediac, and by rail one hundred and eight miles 

 back to St. John. At Truro, delightfully located on an exten- 

 sive plateau of meadow-land encircled by an amphitheatre 

 of hills, can be traced the dykes thrown up by the Acadiaus 

 one hundred years ago, to reclaim the fertile bottoms and 

 keep the encroaching tides from the uplands. There are 

 gigantic willows, planted by the progenitors of Longfellow's 

 heroine, and a nearly obliterated burial-ground in which the 

 bones of many of them rest. Pictou is the depot of the 

 great coal region. Charlottetown is the capital of a pastoral 

 island noted for its fertility and agricultural products, and is 

 surrounded by elegant villas and gardens of retired English 

 gentlemen, with every hot-house luxury and landscape em- 

 bellishment to be found in climes considered more genial. 

 Here on Saturdays the market-square is fiUed with a hetero- 

 geneous collection of queer people, antique vehicles, and 

 scrubby ponies, from the neighboring settlements ; and then 

 there is a jargon of Indian, Scotch, and Acadian dialects, a 

 commingling of quaint costumes, and a confusion of signs 

 and sounds, that would delight a factory operative accus- 

 tomed to the whirr and buzz of a mill. Inordinate quanti- 

 ties of garden-truck are sold for miscellaneous coins from 

 mints long since defunct, and of no current value whatever. 

 Anything that looks like money is much preferred to the 

 best of paper currency. The proverbial button would pass, 

 provided it had no eye. There are no better, longer, straight- 

 cr, or more level roads anywhere than on Prince Edward's 

 Island. Summerside is a thriving town that has grown 



