A Pilot Came Off To Offer His Services, But Was Rejected,
And To My Delight He Hailed In A Pure English Accent, Which Sounded Like A
Friendly Welcome.
The captain took his place on the paddle-box, and our
speed was slackened.
Two guns were fired, and their echoes rolled for many
a mile among the low, purple hills, from which a soft, fragrant scent of
pines was borne to us on the evening breeze, reminding me of the far-
distant mountains of Scotland. The tiny waves rippled towards us like
diamonds, the moon and stars shone brilliantly from a summer sky, and the
white smoke from our guns floated away in silver clouds.
People were tumbling over each other in their haste, and making impossible
demands, each one being anxious to have his luggage produced first, though
the said luggage might be at the bottom of the hold; babies, as babies
always do, persisted in crying just at the wrong time; articles essential
to the toilet were missing, and sixpences or half-sovereigns had found
their way into impossible crevices. Invitations were given, cards
exchanged, elderly ladies unthinkingly promised to make errant expeditions
to visit agreeable acquaintances in California, and by the time the last
words had been spoken we were safely moored at Cunard's wharf.
The evening gun boomed from the citadel. I heard the well-known British
bugle; I saw the familiar scarlet of our troops; the voices which
vociferated were English; the physiognomies had the Anglo-Saxon cast and
complexion; and on the shores of the western hemisphere I felt myself at
home. Yet, as I sprang from the boat, and set my foot for the first time
on American soil, I was vexed that these familiar sights and sounds should
deprive me of the pleasurable feeling of excitement which I had expected
to experience under such novel circumstances.
CHAPTER II
An inhospitable reception - Halifax and the Blue Noses - The heat -
Disappointed expectations - The great departed - What the Blue Noses might
be - What the coach was not - Nova Scotia and its capabilities - The roads
and their annoyances - A tea dinner - A night journey and a Highland cabin -
A nautical catastrophe - A joyful reunion.
The Cunard steamers are powerful, punctual, and safe, their cuisine
excellent, their arrangements admirable, till they reach Halifax, which is
usually the destination of many of the passengers. I will suppose that the
voyage has been propitious, and our guns have thundered forth the
announcement that the news of the Old World has reached the New; that the
stewards have been fee'd and the captain complimented; and that we have
parted on the best possible terms with the Company, the ship, and our
fellow-passengers. The steamer generally remains for two or three hours at
Halifax to coal, and unship a portion of her cargo, and there is a very
natural desire on the part of the passengers to leave what to many is at
best a floating prison, and set foot on firm ground, even for an hour.
Those who, like ourselves, land at Halifax for the interior, are anxious
to obtain rooms at the hotel, and all who have nothing else to do hurry to
the ice-shop, where the luxury of a tumbler of raspberry-cream ice can be
obtained for threepence. Besides the hurried rush of those who with these
varied objects in view leave the steamer, there are crowds of incomers in
the shape of porters, visitors, and coalheavers, and passengers for the
States, who prefer the comfort and known punctuality of the Royal Mail
steamers to the delay, danger, and uncertainty of the intercolonial route,
though the expense of the former is nearly double. There are the friends
of the passengers, and numbers of persons who seem particularly well
acquainted with the purser, who bring fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry,
and lobsters.
From this description it may be imagined that there is a motley and
considerable crowd; but it will scarcely be imagined that there is only
one regulation, which is, that no persons may enter or depart till the
mail-bags have been landed. The wharf is small and at night unlighted, and
the scene which ensued on our landing about eight o'clock in the evening
reminded me, not by contrast, but resemblance, of descriptions which
travellers give of the disembarkation at Alexandria. Directly that the
board was laid from the Canada to the wharf a rush both in and out took
place, in which I was separated from my relations, and should have fallen
had not a friend, used to the scene of disorder, come to my assistance.
The wharf was dirty, unlighted, and under repair, covered with heaps and
full of holes. My friend was carrying three parcels, when three or four
men made a rush at us, seized them from him, and were only compelled to
relinquish them by some sharp physical arguments. A large gateway, lighted
by one feeble oil-lamp at the head of the wharf, was then opened, and the
crowd pent up behind it came pouring down the sloping road. There was a
simultaneous rush of trucks, hand-carts, waggons, and cars, their horses
at full trot or canter, two of them rushing against the gravel-heap on
which I was standing, where they were upset. Struggling, shouting,
beating, and scuffling, the drivers all forced their way upon the wharf,
regardless of cries from the ladies and threats from the gentlemen, for
all the passengers had landed and were fighting their way to an ice-shop.
Porters were scuffling with each other for the possession of portmanteaus,
wheels were locked, and drivers were vehemently expostulating in the rich
brogue of Erin; people were jostling each other in their haste, or diving
into the dimly-lighted custom-house, and it must have been fully half an
hour before we had extricated ourselves from this chaos of mismanagement
and disorder, by scrambling over gravel-heaps and piles of timber, into
the dirty, unlighted streets of Halifax.
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