CHAPTER LXII.
NEW GLASGOW.—THE RIDE TO TRURO.—THE RAILWAY RIDE TO HALIFAX.—PARTING WITH THE PAINTER.
Tuesday, July 26. New Glasgow. We halt here for breakfast, after a sociable and merry ride of several hours from Antigonish, where, after a refreshing sleep, we were favored by a change of coaches, and the pleasant company of an officer of the English army. Here is a broad and fertile vale with a pretty river and town; all reminding us of New England. Across the river are coal-mines, a railroad, and the roar of cars, merely coal-cars, however. Tide-water is close by, setting in from the Strait of Northumberland, the lengthy water lying between the mainland and Prince Edward’s Island. We are all ready for our ride to Truro, on Mines Bay, or a spur of it, an eastern reach of the Bay of Fundy, and distant forty miles, where we take the cars for Halifax, or all the world. Those wonderful cars! Why, at Truro, I shall begin to feel at home, a point more remote than Europe, in the day of only sails and horse-power.
The ride is cheering, as we take it on the coach-top in the breezy, bright day. Broad farms, with barns and dwellings, grass and grain and orchards, cattle and bleating sheep spread out upon the hills, and stretch along the valleys. The plain of Truro has many of the features of a populous and well-cultivated county. Its groves and trees and wide meadows, waiting for the mower, form a pretty and extended landscape. The town itself, reached at three o’clock, with its central square and grass and shades, is too much like a village of New England to need further mention. While at dinner, the whistle of the locomotive indicated the direction of the station, a welcome call, which we obeyed with rather more than ordinary alacrity. The ride to Halifax, which occupied from four o’clock until dusk, was by no means at Yankee speed, and took us through a thinly inhabited country, somewhat broken, and interspersed with woods and waters—a region that makes no very definite or lasting impression, and yet one that the traveller looks out upon with some pleasure. The last few miles along the banks of the river flowing into Halifax Bay was a lovely valley ride. Rounded hills and bluffs green and bowery, and handsome residences looking out between pretty groves and down grassy lawns, never appeared more attractive. Had we been going the other way, perhaps they would not have seemed deserving of more than a passing look. In the weary hours, and along the torrid portions of the path of life, I am sure that I shall remember the quiet, refreshing scenery of that river, and wish myself among its graceful and placid beauties. From the noisy station we trundled in an omnibus through the narrow streets of an old-fashioned, hill-side city, crowned with a fortress looking off south upon a bay and the distant ocean, and alighted at a hotel of stories and many windows, where we heard a gong, instrument of Pandemonium, and took tea with the relish of medicine, and talked over the conclusion of our journey. As haste was more requisite on my part, I resolved to post across the province to Windsor, that night, and leave the painter to wend his way homeward at his leisure.