The Day After We Landed Was One Of
Intense Heat, The Thermometer Stood At 93° In The Shade.
The rays of a
summer sun scorched the shingle roof of our hotel, and, penetrating the
thin plank walls, made the interior of the house perfectly unbearable.
There were neither sunshades nor Venetian blinds, and not a tree to shade
the square white wooden house from an almost tropical heat.
When I came
into the parlour I found Colonel H - - stretched on the sofa, almost
expiring with heat, my cousin standing panting before the window in his
shirtsleeves, and his little boy lying moaning on the hearthrug, with his
shoes off, and his complexion like that of a Red Indian. One of our party
had been promenading the broiling streets of Halifax without his coat! A
gentleman from one of the Channel Islands, of unsophisticated manners and
excellent disposition, who had landed with us en route to a town on the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, had fancied our North American colonies for ever
"locked in regions of thick-ribbed ice," and consequently was abundantly
provided with warm clothing of every description. With this he was
prepared to face a thermometer at twenty degrees below zero.
But when he found a torrid sun, and the thermometer at 93° in the shade,
his courage failed him, and, with all his preconceived ideas overthrown by
the burning experience of one day, despair seized on him, and his
expressions of horror and astonishment were coupled with lamentations over
the green fertility of Jersey.
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