Having now conducted my readers, from the Canadian boundary, through a vast extent of territory, tracing, in our route, the course of the magnificent river St. John, with its myriads of lakes and tributary streams, opening an inland navigation to almost every part of this fine province, I shall next make a rambling tour through the sister colony of Nova Scotia, describing, as I go along, the most striking and romantic features of that country, which will form the concluding portion of this work. Before quitting New Brunswick, I shall offer a few brief observations on some of the most prominent advantages and disadvantages of the colony. The rigours of the climate in winter, about which so much has been said, and which seems to have deterred many English emigrants from settling here, have been considerably exaggerated. The fact is, the climate has of late been materially ameliorated; the winters are by no means so severe, or of the same duration, as they were fifteen or twenty years since. The reason is obvious: the rapidity with which settlers are clearing the forest, and opening the face of the earth to the light of day, gives to the sun’s influence a much greater extent of country annually; as a natural consequence, the snows melt more early and rapidly, and the winters become proportionably short. When the colony was but thinly inhabited, the winter commenced early in November, and continued generally until the end of April; latterly, however, there has been no dead winter until Christmas, and the spring has usually opened in the beginning of April. But even the winter has its advantages and pleasures. The snow which falls then protects the herbage and winter grain from the severity of the frost, and natural roads are formed on the hardened snow, which materially facilitate the labours of the farmer and the lumberer. When the cold is extreme, the inhabitants keep within doors; and, fuel being abundant, they feel little of the severity of the frost without. As soon as a favourable change takes place in the weather, the roads and rivers are again alive with sleighs and sleds, drawn by horses, and posting at a rapid rate, in all directions, over the glassy surface of the ice; the former as vehicles of pleasure, and the latter laden with provisions for the markets. Many settlers travel in these sleds from two to three hundred miles to the city for a market, (such trips being seldom made more than once a year,) when they barter their farm produce for tea, tobacco, hardware, and other luxuries which their farms do not yield. The summer, as I have already observed, is truly delightful; the air, notwithstanding the heat, is pure, and the nights at this season exceed in splendour the most beautiful in Europe. The autumn very much resembles an English autumn—the days warm, and the evenings delightfully cool. The productions of the province necessary for man’s support are various and abundant:—wheat and Indian corn, with hay on the intervale[9] lands.