HALIFAX.
WE have now been lying for hours off Halifax. The fog appears to be in a
profound slumber. Whistle, bell and big guns have no power to wake it
up. The waves themselves have gone to sleep under the fleecy covering.
Old Ocean lazily breathes and dreams. The top-mast, lofty and slim,
marks and flourishes on the misty sky, as an idler marks the sand with
his cane. Pricked on by our impatience, back and forth we step the deck,
about as purposeless as leopards step their cage. They are letting off
the steam. It is flowing up from the great fountains, a deep and solemn
voice, a grand ventriloquism, that muffles in its breadth and fulness
all the smaller sounds, as the mighty roar dampens the noisy dashings of
the cataract. What a sublime translation of human skill and genius is an
engine, this stupendous creature of iron! How splendid are its polished
limbs! What power in all those easy motions! What execution in those
still and oily manœuvres!
Among the ladies there is one of more than ordinary beauty. Luxuriant,
dark hair, a fair complexion with the bloom of health, a head and neck
that would attract a sculptor, and surpassingly fine, black eyes. There
is a power in beauty. Why has not God given it to us all? You shall
answer me that in heaven. There is indeed a power in beauty. It goes
forth from this young woman on all sides, like rays from some central
light. I have called her a New England girl, but she turns out to be
Welsh.
How like magic is the work of this fog! Instantly almost it is pulled
apart like a fleece of wool, and lo! the heavens, the ocean, and the
rugged shores. A pilot comes aboard from a fishing-boat, looking as
rough and craggy as if he had been, toad-like, blasted out of the rocks
of his flinty country, so brown and warty is his skin, so shaggy are his
beard and hair, so sail-like and tarry is his raiment. The ancient
mariner for all the world! His skinny hand touches no common mortal. His
glittering eye looks right on, as he moves with silent importance to the
place where shine the gilded buttons of the captain.
This is a wild northern scene. Hills, bony with rock and bristling with
pointed firs, slope down to the sea. But yet how beautiful is any land
looking off upon the barren deeps of ocean. Distant is the city on a
hill-side, glittering at a thousand points, while on either hand, as we
move in at the entrance of the harbor, are the pleasant woods and the
white dwellings, country steeples and cultivated grounds. As the
comfortless mist rolls away, and the golden light follows after, warming
the wet and chilly landscape, I feel that there are bliss and beauty in
Nova Scotia.
Grandly as we parade ourselves, in the presence of the country and the
town, I prefer the more modest, back-street entrance of the railroad.
The fact is, I am afraid of your great steamer on the main, and for the
reason given by a friend of mine: if you have a smash-up on the land,
why, there you are; if, on the sea, where are you?
I have been talking with the fair lady of Wales. She was all spirit.
“There was much,” she said, “that was fine, in America; but Wales was
most beautiful of all. Had I ever been in Wales?” One could well have
felt sorry he was not then on his way to Wales. We parted where we met,
probably to meet no more, and I went forward to gaze upon the crowded
wharf, which we were then approaching. A few hasty adieus to some
newly-formed acquaintances, and we passed ashore to seek the steamer for
Cape Breton. It was waiting for us just behind the storehouse where we
landed, and soon followed the America with a speed not exactly in
proportion to the noise and effort.