Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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“ ‘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.