The same steamer which conveyed you to Digby takes you, if you wish it, on to Annapolis, a small town situated on the river Annapolis, at the eastern extremity of the bay. It is built upon the extremity of a peninsula, which, projecting into the river, forms two beautiful basons, one above and the other below the town. This place, the earliest settlement, and the capital of the province, while under the dominion of France, was called Port Royal; but changed to Annapolis Royal, in honour of Queen Anne, in whose reign it was ceded to England. Mr. Haliburton tells us that, “in addition to its being the most ancient, it is also the most loyal city of this Western Hemisphere. This character it has always sustained; and ‘royal,’ as a mark of peculiar favour, has ever been added to its cognomen by every government that has ever had dominion over it.” But royal patronage does not seem to have done much towards improving the condition of the place, for it has increased little in size or population since the conquest of the province. It is, however, a respectable town, and contains—a government-house, court-house, Episcopalian and Methodist churches, a respectable academy, supported by a legislative grant, commodious barracks, and several handsome private buildings. From the circumstance of the first governors of the province having resided at Annapolis, many of the most interesting subjects relating to the history of the colony are connected with this town. Indeed, it is impossible to walk in its pleasant environs, without being struck with the “old world” look of the country,—the quickset hedges, and the neatness of the farms and gardens, reminding one forcibly of an English rural scene. The view that best pleased me in this neighbourhood was that from THE OLD FORT OF ANNAPOLIS, on the south-western extremity of the peninsula, which commands a fine prospect of the broad and beautiful bason, the settlements on the Granville shore, and part of Clements. These fortifications, which were erected at an immense expense, are in a dilapidated condition; the cannon dismounted, and incapable, in the present state, of sustaining a defence. An old block-house, in a ruinous state, has an air of antiquity rarely to be met with in this country; its venerable appearance struck me as being quite un-American. [Illustration: _The General’s Bridge, near Annapolis._ (Nova Scotia.)]