The Colonel Was Obliged To Report Himself
At Head-Quarters In His Full Uniform, Which Was Evidently Tight And Hot;
And After Changing His Apparel Three Times In The Day, Apparently Without
Being A Gainer, He Went Out To Make Certain Meteorological Inquiries,
Among Others If 93° Were A Common Temperature.
The conclusion he arrived at was, that the "climate alternates between the
heat of India and the cold of Lapland."
We braved the heat at noonday in a stroll through the town, for, from the
perfect dryness of the atmosphere, it is not of an oppressive nature. I
saw few whites in the streets at this hour. There were a great many
Indians lying by the door-steps, having disposed of their baskets, besoms,
and raspberries, by the sale of which they make a scanty livelihood. The
men, with their jet-black hair, rich complexions, and dark liquid brown
eyes, were almost invariably handsome; and the women, whose beauty departs
before they are twenty, were something in the "Meg Merrilies" style.
When the French first colonised this country, they called it "Acadie."
The tribes of the Mic-Mac Indians peopled its forests, and, among the dark
woods which then surrounded Halifax, they worshipped the Great Spirit, and
hunted the moose-deer. Their birch-bark wigwams peeped from among the
trees, their squaws urged their light canoes over the broad deep harbour,
and their wise men spoke to them of the "happy hunting grounds." The
French destroyed them not, and gave them a corrupted form of Christianity,
inciting their passions against the English by telling them that they were
the people who had crucified the Saviour.
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