p and rusty
look. Its streets rise one above another on the hillside, and, except
a few comfortable cottages, we saw no evidences of wealth in the
dwellings. The church, when we reached it, was a commonplace brick
structure, with a raw, unfinished interior, and weedy and untidy
surroundings, so that our expectation of sitting on the inviting hill
and enjoying the view was not realized; and we were obliged to descend
to the hot wharf and wait for the ferry-boat to take us to the steamboat
which lay at the railway terminus opposite. It is the most unfair thing
in the world for the traveler, without an object or any interest in the
development of the country, on a sleepy day in August, to express any
opinion whatever about such a town as Pictou. But we may say of it,
without offence, that it occupies a charming situation, and may have an
interesting future; and that a person on a short acquaintance can leave
it without regret.

By stopping here we had the misfortune to lose our excursion, a loss
that was soothed by no know ledge of its destination or hope of seeing
it again, and a loss without a hope is nearly always painful. Going out
of the harbor we encounter Pictou Island and Light, and presently see
the low coast of Prince Edward Island,--a coast indented and agreeable
to those idly sailing along it, in weather that seemed let down out of
heaven and over a sea that sparkled but still slept in a summer
quiet. When fate puts a man in such a position and relieves him of all
responsibility, with a book and a good comrade, and liberty to make
sarcastic remarks upon his fellow-travelers, or to doze, or to look
over the tranquil sea, he may be pronounced happy. And I believe that my
companion, except in the matter of the comrade, was happy. But I could
not resist a worrying anxiety about the future of the British Provinces,
which not even the remembrance of their hostility to us during our
mortal strife with the Rebellion could render agreeable. For I could
not but feel that the ostentatious and unconcealable prosperity of "the
States" over-shadows this part of the continent. And it was for once in
vain that I said, "Have we not a common land and a common literature,
and no copyright, and a common pride in Shakespeare and Hannah More
and Colonel Newcome and Pepys's Diary?" I never knew this sort of
consolation to fail before; it does not seem to answer in the Provinces
as well as it does in England.

New passengers had com