"Where," We Said, As We Came Easily, And Neither
Uphill Nor Downhill, Into The Pleasant Harbor Of St. John, - -"Where
Are The Tides Of Our Youth?"
They were probably out, for when we came to the land we walked out
upon the foot of a sloping platform that ran into the water by the
side of the piles of the dock, which stood up naked and blackened
high in the air.
It is not the purpose of this paper to describe St.
John, nor to dwell upon its picturesque situation. As one approaches
it from the harbor it gives a promise which its rather shabby
streets, decaying houses, and steep plank sidewalks do not keep. A
city set on a hill, with flags flying from a roof here and there, and
a few shining spires and walls glistening in the sun, always looks
well at a distance. St. John is extravagant in the matter of
flagstaffs; almost every well-to-do citizen seems to have one on his
premises, as a sort of vent for his loyalty, I presume. It is a good
fashion, at any rate, and its more general adoption by us would add
to the gayety of our cities when we celebrate the birthday of the
President. St. John is built on a steep sidehill, from which it
would be in danger of sliding off, if its houses were not mortised
into the solid rock. This makes the house-foundations secure, but
the labor of blasting out streets is considerable. We note these
things complacently as we toil in the sun up the hill to the Victoria
Hotel, which stands well up on the backbone of the ridge, and from
the upper windows of which we have a fine view of the harbor, and of
the hill opposite, above Carleton, where there is the brokenly
truncated ruin of a round stone tower. This tower was one of the
first things that caught our eyes as we entered the harbor. It gave
an antique picturesqueness to the landscape which it entirely wanted
without this. Round stone towers are not so common in this world
that we can afford to be indifferent to them. This is called a
Martello tower, but I could not learn who built it. I could not
understand the indifference, almost amounting to contempt, of the
citizens of St. John in regard to this their only piece of curious
antiquity. "It is nothing but the ruins of an old fort," they said;
"you can see it as well from here as by going there." It was,
however, the one thing at St. John I was determined to see. But we
never got any nearer to it than the ferry-landing. Want of time and
the vis inertia of the place were against us. And now, as I think of
that tower and its perhaps mysterious origin, I have a longing for it
that the possession of nothing else in the Provinces could satisfy.
But it must not be forgotten that we were on our way to Baddeck; that
the whole purpose of the journey was to reach Baddeck; that St. John
was only an incident in the trip; that any information about St.
John, which is here thrown in or mercifully withheld, is entirely
gratuitous, and is not taken into account in the price the reader
pays for this volume.
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