f the dining-room to collect pay for meals, that
this was an abode of comfort and the resort of merry-making and
frolicsome provincials. On this now decaying porch no doubt lovers
sat in the moonlight, and vowed by the Gut of Canso to be fond of
each other forever. The traveler cannot help it if he comes upon the
traces of such sentiment. There lingered yet in the house an air of
the hospitable old time; the swift willingness of the waiting-maids
at table, who were eager that we should miss none of the home-made
dishes, spoke of it; and as we were not obliged to stay in the hotel
and lodge in its six-by-four bedrooms, we could afford to make a
little romance about its history.

While we were at supper the steamboat arrived from Pictou. We
hastened on board, impatient for progress on our homeward journey.
But haste was not called for. The steamboat would not sail on her
return till morning. No one could tell why. It was not on account
of freight to take in or discharge; it was not in hope of more
passengers, for they were all on board. But if the boat had returned
that night to Pictou, some of the passengers might have left her and
gone west by rail, instead of wasting two, or three days lounging
through Northumberland Sound and idling in the harbors of Prince
Edward Island. If the steamboat would leave at midnight, we could
catch the railway train at Pictou. Probably the officials were aware
of this, and they preferred to have our company to Shediac. We
mention this so that the tourist who comes this way may learn to
possess his soul in patience, and know that steamboats are not run
for his accommodation, but to give him repose and to familiarize him
with the country. It is almost impossible to give the unscientific
reader an idea of the slowness of travel by steamboat in these
regions. Let him first fix his mind on the fact that the earth moves
through space at a speed of more than sixty-six thousand miles an
hour. This is a speed eleven hundred times greater than that of the
most rapid express trains. If the distance traversed by a locomotive
in an hour is represented by one tenth of an inch, it would need a
line nine feet long to indicate the corresponding advance of the
earth in the same time. But a tortoise, pursuing his ordinary gait
without a wager, moves eleven hundred times slower than an express
train. We have here a basis of comparison with the provincial
steamboats. If we had seen a tortoise start that nigh