iture open for inspection. And there is Sir John
Gaspard le Marchant, with a brilliant staff, engaged in the pleasant duty
of picking a personal quarrel with each medal-decorated hero, and marking
down every hole in his socks, and every gap in his comb, for the honor of
the service. And this Point Pleasant is a lovely place, too, with a broad
look-out in front, for yonder lies the blue harbor and the ocean deeps.
Just back of the tents is the cookery of the camp, huge mounds of loose
stones, with grooves at the top, very like the architecture of a
cranberry-pie; and if the simile be an homely one, it is the best that
comes to mind to convey an idea of those regimental stoves, with their
seams and channels of fire, over which potatoes bubble, and roast and
boiled scud forth a savory odor. And here and there, wistfully regarding
this active scene, amid the green shrubbery, stands a sentinel before his
sentry-box, built of spruce boughs, wrought into a mimic military temple,
and fanciful enough, too, for a garden of roses. And look you now! If here
be not Die Vernon, with "habit, hat, and feather," cantering gayly down
the road between the tents, and behind her a stately groom in gold-lace
band, top-boots, and buck-skins. A word in your ear--that pleasant
half-English face is the face of the Governor's daughter.

The road to Point Pleasant is a favorite promenade in the long Acadian
twilights. Mid-way between the city and the Point lies "Kissing Bridge,"
which the Halifax maidens sometimes pass over. Who gathers toll nobody
knows, but I thought there was a mischievous glance in the blue eyes of
those passing damsels that said plainly they could tell, "an' they would."
I love to look upon those happy, healthy English faces; those ruddy
cheeks, flushed with exercise, and those well-developed forms, not less
attractive because of the sober-colored dresses and brown flat hats, in
which, o' summer evenings, they glide towards the mysterious precincts of
"The Bridge." What a tale those old arches could tell? _?Quien sabe?_ Who
knows?

But next to "Kissing Bridge," the prominent object of interest, now, to
Halifax ladies, is the great steamer that lies at the Admiralty, the
Oriental screw-steamer Himalaya--the transport ship of two regiments of
the heroes of Balaklava, and Alma, and Inkerman, and Sebastopol. A vast
specimen of naval architecture; an unusual sight in these waters; a marine
vehicle to carry twenty-five hundred men!