brilliant achievement? Can any man, of any nation, stand here and
say: "This work was wrought to my profit?" Can any man draw such a breath
here amid these buried walls, as he can upon the humblest sod that ever
was wet with the blood of patriotism? I trow not.

A second time in possession of this stronghold, England had not the means
to maintain her conquest; the fortification was too large for any but a
powerful garrison. A hundred war-ships had congregated in that harbor:
frigates, seventy-fours, transports, sloops, under the _Fleur-de-lis_.
Although Louisburgh was the pivot-point of the French possessions, yet it
was but an outside harbor for the colonies. So the order went forth to
destroy the town that had been reared with so much cost, and captured with
so much sacrifice. And it took two solid years of gunpowder to blow up
these immense walls, upon which we now sadly stand, O gentle reader! Turf,
turf, turf covers all! The gloomiest spectacle the sight of man can dwell
upon is the desolate, but once populous, abode of humanity. Egypt itself
is cheerful compared with Louisburgh!

"It rains," said Picton.

It had rained all the morning; but what did that matter when a hundred
years since was in one's mind? Picton, in his mackintosh, was an
impervious representative of the nineteenth century; but I was as fully
saturated with water as if I were living in the place under the old French
_regime_.

"Let us go down," said Picton, "and see the jolly old fishermen outside
the walls. What is the use of staying here in the rain after you have seen
all that can be seen? Come along. Just think how serene it will be if we
can get some milk and potatoes down there."

There are about a dozen fishermen's huts on the beach outside the walls of
the old town of Louisburgh. When you enter one it reminds you of the
descriptive play-bill of the melo-drama--"Scene II.: Interior of a
Fisherman's Cottage on the Sea-shore: Ocean in the Distance." The walls
are built of heavy timbers, laid one upon another, and caulked with moss
or oakum. Overhead are square beams, with pegs for nets, poles, guns,
boots, the heterogeneous and picturesque tackle with which such ceilings
are usually ornamented. But oh! how clean everything is! The knots are
fairly scrubbed out of the floor-planks, the hearth-bricks red as
cherries, the dresser-shelves worn thin with soap and sand, and white as
the sand with which they have been scoured. I never saw drawin