New passengers had come on board at Pictou, new and hungry, and not all could get seats for dinner at the first table.Notwithstanding the supposed traditionary advantage of our birthplace, we were unable to dispatch this meal with the celerity of our fellow-voyagers, and consequently, while we lingered over our tea, we found ourselves at the second table.And we were rewarded by one of those pleasing sights that go to make up the entertainment of travel.There sat down opposite to us a fat man whose noble proportions occupied at the board the space of three ordinary men.His great face beamed delight the moment he came near the table.He had a low forehead and a wide mouth and small eyes, and an internal capacity that was a prophecy of famine to his fellow-men.But a more good-natured, pleased animal you may never see.Seating himself with unrepressed joy, he looked at us, and a great smile of satisfaction came over his face, that plainly said, "Now my time has come." Every part of his vast bulk said this.Most generously, by his friendly glances, he made us partners in his pleasure.With a Napoleonic grasp of his situation, he reached far and near, hauling this and that dish of fragments towards his plate, giving orders at the same time, and throwing into his cheerful mouth odd pieces of bread and pickles in an unstudied and preliminary manner.When he had secured everything within his reach, he heaped his plate and began an attack upon the contents, using both knife and fork with wonderful proficiency.The man's good-humor was contagious, and he did not regard our amusement as different in kind from his enjoyment.The spectacle was worth a journey to see.Indeed, its aspect of comicality almost overcame its grossness, and even when the hero loaded in faster than he could swallow, and was obliged to drop his knife for an instant to arrange matters in his mouth with his finger, it was done with such a beaming smile that a pig would not take offense at it.The performance was not the merely vulgar thing it seems on paper, but an achievement unique and perfect, which one is not likely to see more than once in a lifetime.It was only when the man left the table that his face became serious.We had seen him at his best.
Prince Edward Island, as we approached it, had a pleasing aspect, and nothing of that remote friendlessness which its appearance on the map conveys to one; a warm and sandy land, in a genial climate, without fogs, we are informed.In the winter it has ice communication with Nova Scotia, from Cape Traverse to Cape Tormentine,--the route of the submarine cable.The island is as flat from end to end as a floor.
When it surrendered its independent government and joined the Dominion, one of the conditions of the union was that the government should build a railway the whole length of it.This is in process of construction, and the portion that is built affords great satisfaction to the islanders, a railway being one of the necessary adjuncts of civilization; but that there was great need of it, or that it would pay, we were unable to learn.
We sailed through Hillsborough Bay and a narrow strait to Charlottetown, the capital, which lies on a sandy spit of land between two rivers.Our leisurely steamboat tied up here in the afternoon and spent the night, giving the passengers an opportunity to make thorough acquaintance with the town.It has the appearance of a place from which something has departed; a wooden town, with wide and vacant streets, and the air of waiting for something.
Almost melancholy is the aspect of its freestone colonial building, where once the colonial legislature held its momentous sessions, and the colonial governor shed the delightful aroma of royalty.The mansion of the governor--now vacant of pomp, because that official does not exist--is a little withdrawn from the town, secluded among trees by the water-side.It is dignified with a winding approach, but is itself only a cheap and decaying house.On our way to it we passed the drill-shed of the local cavalry, which we mistook for a skating-rink, and thereby excited the contempt of an old lady of whom we inquired.Tasteful residences we did not find, nor that attention to flowers and gardens which the mild climate would suggest.Indeed, we should describe Charlottetown as a place where the hollyhock in the dooryard is considered an ornament.A conspicuous building is a large market-house shingled all over (as many of the public buildings are), and this and other cheap public edifices stand in the midst of a large square, which is surrounded by shabby shops for the most part.The town is laid out on a generous scale, and it is to be regretted that we could not have seen it when it enjoyed the glory of a governor and court and ministers of state, and all the paraphernalia of a royal parliament.That the productive island, with its system of free schools, is about to enter upon a prosperous career, and that Charlottetown is soon to become a place of great activity, no one who converses with the natives can doubt; and Ithink that even now no traveler will regret spending an hour or two there; but it is necessary to say that the rosy inducements to tourists to spend the summer there exist only in the guide-books.
We congratulated ourselves that we should at least have a night of delightful sleep on the steamboat in the quiet of this secluded harbor.But it was wisely ordered otherwise, to the end that we should improve our time by an interesting study of human nature.