ed the coast of China, they were surprised, when only six weeks at sea, by the sight of land, which being the first they had seen, they called Prima Vista-generally supposed to have been some part of this peninsula. The earliest attempt at colonization was made by a French marquis, De la Roche, in 1598, but with little success. Shortly after this, it received the name of Acadia, in the commission granted to one De Monts to be the governor of it; which name it continued to bear till 1621, when, having fallen into the hands of the English, it was called Nova Scotia by Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, who received from James I. a gift of the whole territory lying between the River St. Croix and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. From this time till 1759 it remained in a very disorganized state; but, on the taking of Quebec by Wolfe, it became settled and secure, and since that period nothing has occurred materially to impair its peace or retard its prosperity.

In extent, Nova Scotia is not inconsiderable, being about 300 miles in length, but of unequal width, varying from 100 to 30 miles, and containing a superficies of 15,617 square miles, which is nearly half the size of Scotland. If we add Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, and New Brunswick-the two former of which are islands that lie upon its coast, the latter that portion of North America to which it is adjoined by a narrow isthmus, and in all of which ministers of the Secession are to be found-we shall have an extent of country exceeding Scotland by upwards of 10,000 square miles.

The most striking characteristic of this peninsula pertains to its coasts, which are singularly indented, and abound with the safest and most capacious har

bours. The southern shore, in particular, is remarkable-being lined with rocks and studded with innumerable small islands, between which and the mainland coasting vessels are seen to pursue their course in comparatively smooth water, even when the main ocean is violently agitated.

The face of the country is agreeably diversified. It is undulating and hilly throughout, but can hardly be styled mountainous. The highest land is in the range of the Cobequid Mountains, parts of which are said to be about 1,500 feet above the level of the

sea.

The interior is intersected and beautified by numerous lakes and rivers. The former, owing to its great inequalities of surface, are almost innumerable. Yarmouth township alone contains upwards of seventy. The most extensive of them are the Rosignol, situated partly in each of the three counties of Queen, Shelburne, and Annapolis, and said to be thirty miles long. The principal rivers are the Annapolis, the Shubenacadie, and St. Mary's.

The soil is of various qualities. On the southern coast, the lands are generally so rocky as to be cultivated only with extreme difficulty; but in many parts of the interior, and particularly on the side towards the Bay of Fundy, the soil is very rich and fertile. Here many thousand acres of dyked marsh-land are to be met with; this is, alluvial land, formed of a sediment, the deposit of the tides, composed of the finer particles of soil brought away by the rivers in their course, and of putrescent matter, salt, and other ingredients. This land, which is called. marsh, after it has attained a suitable height, is dyked, and the waters of the rivers excluded; and is

so rich, that in some places it is said to yield three tons of hay per acre, and to have done so without manure for fifty years in succession. The next best land is intervale, formed by the overflowing of large fresh-water brooks and rivers in the spring and autumn. It is estimated that one-third of the whole superficies of the province should be deducted for lakes, arms of the sea, and rivers-leaving about seven millions of acres of land, of which three parts are prime land, four good, three inferior, and two in.. capable of cultivation. The climate was, for many years after its discovery, regarded as an insuperable barrier to agricultural industry; but this has been proved to be a great mistake. It is as good as that of Scotland, and in the opinion of many who have had experience of both, much superior. The temperature, indeed, is colder in winter; but then, when the weather is cold, it is usually dry. The summer heat is moderate and regular; the autumn is a delightful season, and there is seldom any severe winter weather until the end of December. Frost,* continues generally from Christmas to April, only interrupted by thaws, which almost invariably take place at intervals in January. The heaviest snow-storms occur in February. Rain falls in greatest abundance in spring and autumn; and a fog prevails on the south shore, near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, but does not extend far inland.

The position of Nova Scotia is commanding. Situated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, it has been described as the key to British North America. Canada may be said to have little or no sea-board, excepting what

* See a very carefully digested article on Nova Scotia in the last edition of the "Edinburgh Encyclopædia."

it supplies; and this, taken in connection with the exhaustless coal and iron mines of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, shows that this peninsula, when joined by railways to Montreal, as it is likely to be, will one day become the grand medium of communication with, as well as a grand source of comfort and wealth to, our Canadian possessions.

The province is divided into counties, and these again into townships; the latter, however, do not include a definite quantity of land, nor assume a prescribed shape, as in Canada, but vary in size and figure. The principal towns and villages are, Halifax, Pictou, Yarmouth, Liverpool, Shelburne, Windsor, Truro, Cornwallis, Antigonish, Amherst, Guysborough, and Sydney, in Cape Breton.

The population of the country, from the time it fell into the hands of the French, increased but slowly. In 1749, that is, one hundred and forty-four years after their settlement in the province, the Acadians, as the French colonists were called, amounted to only 18,000. They were all adherents of the Church of Rome; and mustered in considerable numbers in the locality from which the first application for a dispensation of gospel ordinances was addressed to the Secession Church. But at the time of that application, which was a few years after the occupation of Nova Scotia by the English, the number of Acadians had been reduced, by the most unjustifiable and inhuman conduct, to 2,600. The story of the expatriation of these men will for ever remain a foul stain on the provincial government of that period. Suspected, it might be, but unconvicted of disloyalty, they were stripped of their lands, houses, and cattle; and, being violently seized upon, were dispersed among the Ame

rican provinces. In September of 1755, 7,000 of them were so disposed of; and hence, in 1760, when British settlers began to be attracted to Nova Scotia in considerable numbers, they entered, in many instances, into the possession of lands that had been dyked and cultivated by the Acadians, and which presented, in deserted, ruinous houses, and dilapidated churches, extensive traces of recent spoliation. On the removal of the Acadians in 1755, the number of British settlers was found to be 5,000; but in 1764, when the Secession Church had its attention first drawn to their spiritual condition, it had risen to somewhat more than 10,000. The cause of this rapid increase, was the settled state of things consequent on the capture of Quebec, and especially on the signing of a treaty of peace between Great Britain and France in 1763, along with the active efforts of parties who had acquired immense blocks of land in the province, and who succeeded in inducing many to emigrate from Scotland, Ireland, and what became afterwards the United States. The present population is 200,000, enjoying all the rights and liberties of British subjects. Let it be recollected, then, that about the time our history commences, Nova Scotia had rid itself almost entirely of its original French colonists-was just beginning to enjoy the blessings of peace, and possessed so thin a population, that, with the exception of a few clearances here and there, it presented the aspect of an almost unbroken wilderness. Moreover, the character of the people generally was far from being estimable; and, considering the long agitated state of the country, and the number of soldiers, sailors, and adventurers that frequented its ports, this is not surprising. In a letter,