wn amid a glow of
grandeur that illuminated all the world to the west, transfigured the
blue mountains veined with snow, and spread a soft roseate blush over
the white lowlands. We went to bed in New Brunswick still in the hilly
country named by the colonists Northumberland. We awoke to find
ourselves in the narrow neck of land which connects Nova Scotia with the
continent. It was like going to bed in Sweden in December, and waking in
Ireland in September. The snow was melted, the sun was hidden behind the
one thin cloud that spread from horizon to horizon, and the sharp, brisk
air of yesterday was exchanged for a cold, wet atmosphere, that
distilled itself in dank drops on the window-panes. The aspect of the
country was also changed. The ground was sodden, the grass brown with
perpetual wet. In one field we saw the hapless haycocks floating in
water. Thus it was through Nova Scotia into Halifax--water everywhere on
the ground, and threatening rain in the air.

CHAPTER XI

EASTER ON LES AVANTS.

We nearly lost our Naturalist between Paris and Lausanne. It was felt at
the time, more especially by the latest additions to the party, that
this would have been a great calamity. Habits, long acquired, of
stopping by the roadside and minutely examining weeds or bits of stone,
are not to be eradicated in a night's journey by rail. Accordingly,
wherever the train stopped the Naturalist was, at the last moment,
discovered to be absent, and search parties were organised with a
promptness that, before we reached Dijon, had become quite creditable.
But the success achieved begat a condition of confidence that nearly
proved fatal. In travelling on a French line there is only one thing
more remarkable than the leisurely way in which an express train gets
under way after having stopped at a station, and that is the excitement
that pervades the neighbourhood ten minutes before the train starts. Men
in uniform go about shrieking _"En voiture, messieurs, en voiture!"_ in
a manner that suggests to the English traveller that the train is
actually in motion, and that his passage is all but lost.

It was this habitude that led to our excitement at Melun. We had, after
superhuman efforts, got the Naturalist into the carriage, and had
breathlessly fallen back in the seat, expecting the train to move
forthwith. Ten minutes later it slowly steamed out of the station,
accompanied by the sound of the tootling horn and enveloped in thick
cl