f hoarse voices of
command in the obscurity; a trampling of men; and then down went the
anchor in the ooze, and the Canada was fog-bound in the old harbor of
Chebucto for the night, within a few miles of the city.

But with the early dawn, we awoke to hear the welcome sounds of the
engines in motion, and when we reached the deck, the mist was drifted with
sunlight, and rose and fell in luminous billows on water and shore, and
then lifted, lingered, and vanished!

"And this is Halifax?" said I, as that quaint, mouldy old town poked its
wooden gables through the fog of the second morning. "This is Halifax?
This the capital of Nova Scotia? This the city that harbored those loyal
heroes of the Revolution, who gallantly and gayly fought, and bled, and
ran for their king? Ah! you brave old Tories; you staunch upholders of the
crown; cavaliers without ringlets or feathers, russet boots or
steeple-crown hats, it seems as if you were still hovering over this
venerable tabernacle of seven hundred gables, and wreathing each
particular ridge-pole, pigeon-hole, and shingle with a halo of fog."

The plank was laid, and the passengers left the steamer. There were a few
vehicles on the wharf for the accommodation of strangers; square, black,
funereal-like, wheeled sarcophagi, eminently suggestive of burials and
crape. Of course I did not ride in one, on account of unpleasant
associations; but, placing my trunk in charge of a cart-boy with a
long-tailed dray, and a diminutive pony, I walked through the silent
streets towards "The Waverley."

It was an inspiriting morning, that which I met upon the well-docked
shores of Halifax, and although the side-walks of the city were neither
bricked nor paved with flags, and the middle street was in its original
and aboriginal clay, yet there was novelty in making its acquaintance.
Everybody was asleep in that early fog; and when everybody woke up, it was
done so quietly that the change was scarcely apparent.

But the "Merlin," British mailer, is to sail at noon for the Shakspeare
Island, and breakfast must be discussed, and then once more I am with you,
my anti-bilious ocean. It chanced, however, I heard at breakfast, that the
"Curlew," the mate of the "Merlin," had been lost a short time before at
sea, and as there was but one, and not two steamers on the route, so that
I would be detained longer with Prospero and Miranda than might be
comfortable in the approaching hot weather, it came to pa