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There is more of it, but nothing to the purpose of the present history. It cost me something to transcribe this, so vividly is the past recalled by it. Would to God I might more fully devote to his service every day of the life so wonderfully preserved by him.
In addition to this continuous preservation on horseback, I experienced the same interposing providence when violently upset in a gig. The road where it occurred was strewn with broken rocks on either side, for miles; and scarcely one clear spot appeared, save that on which I was thrown, where a carpet of the softest grass overspread a perfect level of about twelve feet in length, and nearly the same in width. Here I fell, with no other injury than a contusion on the hip. The gig was completely reversed, the horse dashed on till he ran one of the shafts into a bank, and set himself fast.
My sojourn in this interesting country was of two years' duration, marked with many mercies, among the greatest of which was the uninterrupted enjoyment of perfect health, although my first winter there was the most severe that had been known for thirty years, and the following summer one of the most oppressively hot they had ever experienced. The gradations of spring, autumn, and twilight, are there scarcely known, and the sudden transition from summer to winter is as trying to the health of an European as that from day to night is uncongenial to the taste. Here, too, I repented at leisure, and amended with no small difficulty and labor, my neglect of those accomplishments to which my dear mother had so often vainly solicited my attention. The pencil was profitless; I had long thrown it by: books were no longer an adequate set-off against realities, even could I have conjured up a library in the wilderness of Nova Scotia's inland settlement; but the culinary and confectionary branches were there invaluable, and in them I was wofully deficient. Had I not coaxed the old French soldier who officiated as mess-cook to give me a few lessons, we must have lived on raw meal and salt rations during weeks when the roads were completely snowed up, and no provisions could he brought in. However, I proved an apt scholar to poor Sebastian, and to the kind neighbors who initiated me into the mysteries of preserves and pastry. Young ladies cannot tell into what situations events may throw them; and I would strongly recommend the revival of that obsolete study called good housewifery. The woman who cannot dispense with female servants, must not travel. I had none for six months, keen winter months, in Annapolis; the only persons who could be found disengaged being of characters wholly inadmissible. The straits to which I was put were any thing but laughable at the time, though the recollection now often excites a smile. Indeed no perfection in European housekeeping would avail to guard against the devastations that a Nova Scotian frost will make, if not met by tactics peculiar to that climate. How could I anticipate that a fine piece of beef, fresh-killed, brought in at noon still warm, would by two o'clock require smart blows with a hatchet to slice off a steak; or that half-a-dozen plates, perfectly dry, placed at a moderate distance from the fire preparatory to dinner, would presently separate into half a hundred fragments, through the action of heat on their frosted pores; or that milk drawn from a cow within sight of my breakfast-table would be sheeted with ice on its passage thither; or that a momentary pause, for the choice of a fitting phrase in writing a letter, would load the nib of my pen with a black icicle? If I did not cry over my numerous breakages and other disasters, it was under the apprehension of tears freezing on my eyelids; and truly they might have done so, for my fingers were once in that awful condition that must have ended in mortification, but for the presence of mind of a poor soldier, who, seeing me running to the fire in that state, drew his bayonet to bar my approach, and wrapping a coarse cloth round my lifeless hands, muff-fashion, compelled me to walk up and down the spacious hall until the circulation returned, which it did with a sensation of agony that well-nigh took away my senses. This was a most signal escape, for I was wholly ignorant of my danger, and not a little perplexed and annoyed at the insubordinate conduct of the veteran, who was a model of respectful humility. Had he, poor fellow, known how busy those fingers would one day be against his religion—for he was a French Romanist—he might have been tempted to sheath his bayonet and give me free access to the tempting fire, the immense faggots of which would have sufficed to roast a heretic.
Nova Scotia is, I firmly believe, the most generally and devotedly loyal of all our colonies: the attachment of its people to the mother-country is beautiful, and their partisanship in all questions between us and the States most zealous. The only fault I had to find with them was their indifference towards the poor relics of the Indian race still dwelling in the woods, who were to me objects of the liveliest interest even before I had any feeling of Christian duty towards the heathen—or towards such as those who are worse than heathen, being numbered among the members of the Romish church, and utterly, wretchedly ignorant even of such little truth as remains buried under the mass of antichristian error, to make its darkness more visible. The Indians are wholly despised; scarcely looked on as beings of the same race, by the generality of the colonists. Where Christian principle prevails, they become of course important in the highest degree; but I speak of what I saw, when vital godliness was little known among them, and I can aver that even Lord Dalhousie scarcely could succeed in stirring up a momentary interest for the dispersed aborigines. That excellent nobleman devoted himself very warmly to the work of attempting their civilization; and told me that if a few would join him heartily and zealously in the effort, he should succeed; but that, between, lukewarmness on the one side and suspicion on the other, he found himself completely baffled. It was not to be wondered at that the Indians had a lurking dread of experiencing again the hardships, not to say the treachery and cruelty, inflicted on their fathers. I enjoyed a high place in the affection and confidence of those interesting people, the origin of which may help to prove at how light an estimate the poor creatures were generally rated by their white brethren. My claim on their attachment consisted in nothing more than the performance of a bounden duty in sheltering for a few weeks one of their number who had, in a most unprovoked and cruel manner, been wounded by a party of our soldiers and left to perish in the woods.
How beautiful do the white cliffs of Albion appear in the eyes of the returning wanderer who has learned by a foreign sojourn to estimate the comforts, the privileges, the blessings of this island home. No place could be more thoroughly English in feeling, habits, and principles, than Nova Scotia; but it was not England. The violent transition of seasons, so different from the soft gradations by which, with us, winter brightens into summer, and summer fades into winter, marked a contrast far from pleasing; and the intensity of cold, the fierceness of heat, alike unknown in our temperate climate, forced comparisons far from agreeable. Thus, on the lowest ground of a wholly selfish feeling, the approach to nay native shore could not be otherwise than delightful; but viewed as the mother-land, as the great emporium of commerce, the chief temple of liberty, the nurse of military prowess, the unconquered champion of all that is nationally great throughout the world, the sight of our free and happy isle is indeed an inspiring one to those who can appreciate moral grandeur. How much more, in the eyes of the Christian, is she to be esteemed as the glory of all lands, as possessing the true knowledge of God, and laboring to spread that knowledge throughout the world; the land of Protestantism, the land of the Bible.
I really cannot understand the meaning, nor fancy what may be the feeling, of those who profess to have merged their patriotism in something of universal good-will to the household of faith all over the world. It seems to me every whit as unnatural as that the member of a Christian family should forego all the sweets of conjugal, parental, filial, fraternal love, in the determination to feel an equal regard for his neighbor's wife, husband, etc., as for his own; and, moreover, to take an equal concern in the affairs of his neighbor's kitchen as in his own household matters. This sort of generalizing regard would throw our respective establishments into singular confusion, and might betray ourselves into sundry false positions, and very awkward predicaments. However, the comparative extinction of natural affection would form the most prominently reprehensible feature in the case; and I cannot but think that the boasted cosmopolitanism of some good people would wear an aspect not very dissimilar, if rightly and soberly viewed. Certainly I could no more tear the love of country from my heart, than I could the love of kindred; and when my step again pressed the English strand, it was with a sensation almost resembling the fabled invigoration of the Titans, who derived new life, new strength, new enterprise, from coming in contact with their mother earth.
England, indeed, contained little that was personally endearing to me, except my beloved surviving parent; but it was a joyous thing to embrace her once more, after the deep roll of the ocean had separated us for nearly three years; during a portion of which she had been learning to prize her native land, in a disgusting region of all that is most directly opposed to liberty, civil or religious—to honorable feeling, just conduct, honest principle, or practical decency. In short, she had been in Portugal.