I cannot forbear giving a conversation which took place at a meal at this
inn, as it is very characteristic of the style of persons whom one
continually meets with in travelling in these colonies: "I guess you're
from the Old Country?" commenced my _vis-a-vis_; to which recognition of
my nationality I humbly bowed. "What do you think of us here d own east?"
"I have been so short a time in these provinces, that I cannot form any
just opinion." "Oh, but you must have formed some; we like to know what
Old Country folks think of us." Thus asked, I could not avoid making some
reply, and said, "I think there is a great want of systematic enterprise
in these colonies; you do not avail yourselves of the great natural
advantages which you possess." "Well, the fact is, old father Jackey Bull
ought to help us, or let us go off on our own hook right entirely." "You
have responsible government, and, to use your own phrase, you are on 'your
own hook' in all but the name." "Well, I guess as we are; _we're a long
chalk above the Yankees_, though them is fellers as thinks nobody's got
their eye teeth cut but themselves."

The self-complacent ignorance with which this remark was made was
ludicrous in the extreme. He began again: "What do you think of Nova
Scotia and the 'Blue Noses'? Halifax is a grand place, sure_ly_!" "At
Halifax I found the best inn such a one as no respectable American would
condescend to sleep at, and a town of shingles, with scarcely any
sidewalks. The people were talking largely of railways and steamers, yet I
travelled by the mail to Truro and Pictou in a conveyance that would
scarcely have been tolerated in England two centuries ago. The people of
Halifax possess the finest harbour in North America, yet they have no
docks, and scarcely any shipping. The Nova-Scotians, it is known, have
iron, coal, slate, limestone, and freestone, and their shores swarm with
fish, yet they spend their time in talking about railways, docks, and the
House of Assembly, and end by walking about doing nothing."