Gulf of St. Lawrence, had fancied our North American colonies for ever
"locked in regions of thick-ribbed ice," and consequently was abundantly
provided with warm clothing of every description. With this he was
prepared to face a thermometer at twenty degrees below zero.

But when he found a torrid sun, and the thermometer at 93 in the shade,
his courage failed him, and, with all his preconceived ideas overthrown by
the burning experience of one day, despair seized on him, and his
expressions of horror and astonishment were coupled with lamentations over
the green fertility of Jersey. The colonel was obliged to report himself
at head-quarters in his full uniform, which was evidently tight and hot;
and after changing his apparel three times in the day, apparently without
being a gainer, he went out to make certain meteorological inquiries,
among others if 93 were a common temperature.

The conclusion he arrived at was, that the "climate alternates between the
heat of India and the cold of Lapland."

We braved the heat at noonday in a stroll through the town, for, from the
perfect dryness of the atmosphere, it is not of an oppressive nature. I
saw few whites in the streets at this hour. There were a great many
Indians lying by the door-steps, having disposed of their baskets, besoms,
and raspberries, by the sale of which they make a scanty livelihood. The
men, with their jet-black hair, rich complexions, and dark liquid brown
eyes, were almost invariably handsome; and the women, whose beauty departs
before they are twenty, were something in the "_Meg Merrilies_" style.

When the French first colonised this country, they called it "_Acadie_."
The tribes of the Mic-Mac Indians peopled its forests, and, among the dark
woods which then surrounded Halifax, they worshipped the Great Spirit, and