e on board at Pictou, new and hungry, and not
all could get seats for dinner at the first table. Notwithstanding the
supposed traditionary advantage of our birthplace, we were unable
to dispatch this meal with the celerity of our fellow-voyagers, and
consequently, while we lingered over our tea, we found ourselves at the
second table. And we were rewarded by one of those pleasing sights that
go to make up the entertainment of travel. There sat down opposite to
us a fat man whose noble proportions occupied at the board the space
of three ordinary men. His great face beamed delight the moment he came
near the table. He had a low forehead and a wide mouth and small
eyes, and an internal capacity that was a prophecy of famine to his
fellow-men. But a more good-natured, pleased animal you may never see.
Seating himself with unrepressed joy, he looked at us, and a great smile
of satisfaction came over his face, that plainly said, "Now my time has
come." Every part of his vast bulk said this. Most generously, by his
friendly glances, he made us partners in his pleasure. With a Napoleonic
grasp of his situation, he reached far and near, hauling this and that
dish of fragments towards his plate, giving orders at the same time, and
throwing into his cheerful mouth odd pieces of bread and pickles in an
unstudied and preliminary manner. When he had secured everything within
his reach, he heaped his plate and began an attack upon the contents,
using both knife and fork with wonderful proficiency. The man's
good-humor was contagious, and he did not regard our amusement as
different in kind from his enjoyment. The spectacle was worth a journey
to see. Indeed, its aspect of comicality almost overcame its grossness,
and even when the hero loaded in faster than he could swallow, and was
obliged to drop his knife for an instant to arrange matters in his mouth
with his finger, it was done with such a beaming smile that a pig would
not take offense at it. The performance was not the merely vulgar thing
it seems on paper, but an achievement unique and perfect, which one is
not likely to see more than once in a lifetime. It was only when the
man left the table that his face became serious. We had seen him at his
best.

Prince Edward Island, as we approached it, had a pleasing aspect, and
nothing of that remote friendlessness which its appearance on the map
conveys to one; a warm and sandy land, in a genial climate, without
fogs, we are inform