t schools would become
what they are not now, if the geographers would make the other parts
of the globe as attractive as the sonorous Bay of Fundy. The recitation
about that is always an easy one; there is a lusty pleasure in the mere
shouting out of the name, as if the speaking it were an innocent sort of
swearing. From the Bay of Fundy the rivers run uphill half the time,
and the tides are from forty to ninety feet high. For myself, I confess
that, in my imagination, I used to see the tides of this bay go
stalking into the land like gigantic waterspouts; or, when I was better
instructed, I could see them advancing on the coast like a solid wall
of masonry eighty feet high. "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