The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
and is often a great rendezvous of the Royal Navy. It is situated on a peninsula on the south-east coast of Nova Scotia, of which it is the capital. Its situation is very picturesque. The town stands on the declivity of a hill about 250 feet high, rising from one of the finest harbours in the world. The city front is lined with handsome wharfs, while merchants’ houses, dwellings, and public edifices arrange themselves on tiers, stretching along and up the sides of the hill. It has fine wide streets; the principal one, which runs round the edge of the harbour, is capitally paved. The harbour opposite the town, where ships usually anchor, is rather more than a mile wide, and after narrowing to a quarter of a mile above the upper end of the town, expands into Bedford Basin, a completely land-locked sheet of water. This grand sea-lake has an area of ten square miles, and is capable of containing any number of navies. Halifax possesses another advantage not common to every harbour of North America: it is accessible at all seasons, and navigation is rarely impeded by ice. There are two fine lighthouses at Halifax; that on an island off Sambro Head is 210 feet high. The port possesses many large ships of its own, generally employed in the South Sea whale and seal fishery. It is a very prosperous fishing town in other respects.
The town of Halifax was founded in 1749. The settlers, to the number of 3,500, largely composed of naval and military men, whose expenses out had been paid by the British Government to assist in the formation of the station, soon cleared the ground from stumps, &c., and having erected a wooden government house and suitable warehouses for stores and provisions, the town was laid out so as to form a number of straight and handsome streets. Planks, doors, window-frames, and other portions of houses, were imported from the New England settlements, and the more laborious portion of the work, which the settlers executed themselves, was performed with great dispatch. At the approach of winter they found themselves comfortably settled, having completed a number of houses and huts, and covered others in a manner which served to protect them from the rigour of the weather, there very severe. There were now assembled at Halifax about 5,000 people, whose labours were suddenly suspended by the intensity of the frost, and there was in consequence considerable enforced idleness. Haliburton116 mentions the difficulty that the governor had to employ the settlers by sending them out on various expeditions, in palisading the town, and in other public works.
In addition to £40,000 granted by the British Government for the embarkation and other expenses of the first settlers, Parliament continued to make annual grants for the same purpose, which, in 1755, amounted to the considerable sum of £416,000.
The town of Halifax was no sooner built than the French colonists began to be alarmed, and although they did not think proper to make an open avowal of their jealousy and disgust, they employed their emissaries clandestinely in exciting the Indians to harass the inhabitants with hostilities, in such a manner as should effectually hinder them from extending their plantations, or perhaps, indeed, induce them to abandon the settlement. The Indian chiefs, however, for some time took a different view of the matter, waited upon the governor, and acknowledged themselves subjects of the crown of England. The French court thereupon renewed its intrigues with the Indians, and so far succeeded that for several years the town was frequently attacked in the night, and the English could not stir into the adjoining woods without the danger of being shot, scalped, or taken prisoners.
Among the early laws of Nova Scotia was one by which it was enacted that no debts contracted in England, or in any of the colonies prior to the settlement of Halifax, or to the arrival of the debtor, should be recoverable by law in any court in the province. As an asylum for insolvent debtors, it is natural to suppose that Halifax attracted thither the guilty as well as the unfortunate; and we may form some idea of the state of public morals at that period from an order of Governor Cornwallis, which, after reciting that the dead were usually attended to the grave by neither relatives or friends, twelve citizens should in future be summoned to attend the funeral of each deceased person.
The Nova Scotians are popularly known by Canadians and Americans as “Blue Noses,” doubtless from the colour of their nasal appendages in bitter cold weather. It has been already mentioned that Halifax is now a thriving city; but there must have been a period when the people were not particularly enterprising, or else that most veracious individual, “Sam Slick,” greatly belied them. Judge Haliburton, in his immortal “Clockmaker,” introduces the following conversation with Mr. Slick:—
“ ‘You appear,’ said I to Mr. Slick, ‘to have travelled over the whole of this province, and to have observed the country and the people with much attention; pray, what is your opinion of the present state and future prospects of Halifax?’ ‘If you will tell me,’ said he, ‘when the folks there will wake up, then I can answer you; but they are fast asleep. As to the province, it’s a splendid province, and calculated to go ahead; it will grow as fast as a Virginny gall—and they grow so amazing fast, if you put one of your arms round one of their necks to kiss them, by the time you’ve done they’ve growed up into women. It’s a pretty province, I tell you, good above and better below: surface covered with pastures, meadows, woods, and a nation sight of water privileges; and under the ground full of mines. It puts me in mind of the soup at Treemont house—good enough at top, but dip down and you have the riches—the coal, the iron ore, the gypsum, and what not. As for Halifax, it’s well enough in itself, though no great shakes neither; a few sizeable houses, with a proper sight of small ones, like half-a-dozen old hens with their broods of young chickens: but the people, the strange critters, they are all asleep. They walk in their sleep, and talk in their sleep, and what they say one day they forget the next; they say they were dreaming.’ ” This was first published in England in 1838; all accounts now speak of Halifax as a well-built, paved, and cleanly city, and of its inhabitants as enterprising.
THE ISLAND OF ASCENSION.
TRISTAN D’ACUNHA.
CHAPTER XII.
Round the World on a Man-of-War (continued).
THE AFRICAN STATION.
Its Extent—Ascension—Turtle at a Discount—Sierra Leone—An Unhealthy Station—The Cape of Good Hope—Cape Town—Visit of the Sailor Prince—Grand Festivities—Enthusiasm of the Natives—Loyal Demonstrations—An African “Derby”—Grand Dock Inaugurated—Elephant Hunting—The Parting Ball—The Life of a Boer—Circular Farms—The Diamond Discoveries—A £12,000 Gem—A Sailor First President of the Fields—Precarious Nature of the Search—Natal—Inducements held out to Settlers—St. Helena and Napoleon—Discourteous Treatment of a Fallen Foe—The Home of the Caged Lion.
And now we are off to the last of the British naval stations under consideration—that of the African coast. It is called, in naval phraseology, “The West Coast of Africa and Cape of Good Hope Station,” and embraces not merely all that the words imply, but a part of the east coast, including the important colony of Natal. Commencing at latitude 20° N. above the Cape Verd Islands, it includes the islands of Ascension, St. Helena, Tristan d’Acunha, and others already described.
Ascension, which is a British station, with dockyard, and fort garrisoned by artillery and marines, is a barren island, about eight miles long by six broad. Its fort is in lat. 70° 26′ N.: long., 140° 24′ W. It is of volcanic formation, and one of its hills rises to the considerable elevation of 2,870 feet. Until the imprisonment of Napoleon at St. Helena, it was utterly uninhabited. At that period it was garrisoned with a small British force; and so good use was made of their time that it has been partly cultivated and very greatly improved. Irrigation was found, as elsewhere, to work wonders, and as there are magnificent springs, this was rendered easy. Vast numbers of turtle are taken on its shores; and, in consequence, the soldiers prefer the soup of pea, and affect to despise turtle steaks worth half