of Halifax is one of the safest and most
commodious in the world, and large enough to
contain the united navies of all the Christian
powers in the two hemispheres. Landing at
Dartmouth, we travelled pleasantly along an
excellent road: once, and before the construction
of the railway to Windsor and Truro, the
post-road to the last-mentioned town. Our
route skirted the eastern shores of three lakes,
respectively four, five, and seven miles in length,
and from one to three in breadth, named
William, Thomas, and Charles, in honour of the
three sons of some illustrious obscure among
the early settlers of Acadia, but whose surname,
if it survive in tradition, has escaped the record
of history, and is heard no more in the haunts
which he was the first to explore. We passed
several encampments of the Micmac Indians on
the way, and were pursued for long distances
by the juvenile population, male and female, of
the tribe, earnestly clamouring for the
"pennies," which it is the custom of travellers to
throw from their vehicles to induce a scramble,
such as may be seen among the beggars of
Ireland or Italy. Having paid our tribute, as
the cheapest mode of disembarrassing ourselves
of such pertinacious runners as these semi-
savages, who seemed to be quite able to keep
up with our horses for a dozen miles without
distressing themselves, we reached Waverley in
about two hours and a half. The weather was
magnificent, and overhead was a transparent,
deep blue sky, such as is only to be seen in
America, or, perhaps, on the African shores of
the Mediterranean, and of the beauty of which
no Englishman who has not crossed the Atlantic
can form an adequate conception. On one side
of us stretched the "primeval forest" of
hemlock, spruce, and pine, intermingled with the
maple and the beech, from the thickest recesses
of which a spiral column of blue smoke curling
above the tree-tops, every now and then,
betrayed the existence of an Indian wigwam. On
the other side lay the lovely and lonely lakes,
not like Ontario, Erie, or Michigan—too large
for admiration or survey—but bijou pictures,
reflecting in their tranquil bosoms, scarcely
ruffled by the breeze, the beautiful panorama of
hill and forest on their furthest banks; a
woodland tinted by all the gorgeous colours that
autumn in these latitudes scatters amid the
forest trees in bountiful profusion, in which
bright crimson, vivid scarlet, and golden yellow
predominate, and in which green of every
shade, from the pale hue of the earliest vegetation
of the year to the deep colour of the yew
and cypress, mingle with brown and umber, till
the whole forest glows in as much variegation
of tint as a flower-garden in June. The first of
the three lakes, and one of the loveliest of the
chain, is scarcely half an hour's drive from
Halifax, and the second not above an hour's;
and yet no villas or country houses have been
built on the shores of either by the millionaires of
the city. Fashion does not run in that direction;
but if Halifax should become a commercial
emporium of the Confederated States of British
America, as the friends and supporters of
Colonial Union anticipate, it is possible that in a
quarter of a century these fair sheets of water
will not offer to the gaze of the traveller the
picture of primitive wildness which they now
present, and that their banks will be enriched
with the handiwork of the architect and the
landscape gardener, and enlivened with all the
appliances with which wealth and refinement
love to adorn their rural homes. At present,
however, the rich men of Halifax seem to prefer
the dingy wooden houses of their forefathers,
and where they themselves were born, contented
with the substance of wealth, without thinking
it necessary to flaunt its shadow in the eyes of
spectators.

Towards the extremity of the third lake, the
scenery grows more rugged. The bald bare
hills raise their stony heads to an altitude of
seven hundred or eight hundred feet, and the
vegetation at their base becomes scantier.
Every hill-top and rocky eminence, as the town
of Waverley comes into sight, is crowned with
a wooden shanty: either the dwelling-place of a
miner or the entrance of a shaft. Stretching
over the crown of the landscape, these shanties
extend from east to west, the direction of the
vein of gold-bearing quartz, the existence of
which has vivified the wilderness. There is
stone enough lying about—blasted by the miners
in the search for gold, or strewn by the hand of
Nature—to build a city as large as London or
Paris; but every shanty, house, or tenement, in
the place is of wood—wood of the newest and
freshest, unpainted and unadorned—and proving
incontestably that the village is but of yesterday's
growth, and has been called into existence
for a temporary purpose. Were Waverley, with
its two thousand inhabitants, in the United
States, and not in a colony of Great Britain, it
would doubtless possess by this time two or
three daily newspapers, living no one knew
how; as many weeklies, all at variance with
each other, on political, religious, or literary
questions, and vivacious with all the petty
personalities of a small community; as well as a
monster hotel, in which the whole population
could be accommodated; half a dozen chapels
and little Bethels, a synagogue, a school-house,
a fire-engine establishment, and at least two
rival banks. But not being civilised up to the
American point, it makes three small but comfortable
wayside inns do the work of the monster
hotel (and do it much better), and contents itself
with one church, one chapel, and one schoolhouse.
The bank is at Halifax, the newspapers
are non-existent, and, probably, non-projected;
and the wooden shanties stand so far apart that
a fire in one of them would not extend to its
neighbour, consequently that great element in
the social life of the Americans—the Volunteer
Fire Company—is little needed.

Alighting at the Waverley Arms to refresh
ourselves, preparatory to an examination of
the mines, we were agreeably surprised to
find that if we had been contented with bad
whisky or pure water to drink, and with