UNTIL within a few years past the British provinces were popularly regarded as a sort of outpost of the Arctic regions-a land of snow and fog, where the inhabitants went about most of the year clad in furs like the Esquimaux. The stream of summer travel has, however, lately taken a turn in that direction, and thousands of American tourists, equipped with Osgood & Co.'s handbooks for the Canadas and the Maritime Provinces, now yearly cross the great lakes, and drift down the St. Lawrence and the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Bruns wick. An adventurous clergyman on a cruise, like the Rev. George H. Hepworth, whose Starboard and Port has lately been published by the Harpers, will sometimes even make his way along the coast as far north as Labrador, where the shortness of the summer is compensated for by the wild and unusual scenery.

The Canadian section of the Great Exhibition made the Provinces better known than formerly to Philadelphians, and the international boat races on the Schuylkill brought out the merits of the hardy fishermen

VOL. XII.-I

who toil along the rocky coast of Nova Scotia.

Last July, when the thermometer made its great leap up above 100°, and everybody was casting about for a refuge from old Sol's scorching beams, business affairs gave me the opportunity of a trip down the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia as far as Halifax, which I gladly availed myself of. The excitement of the Centennial Fourth was over. Even the Washington Marine Band could scarce attract people to the Lansdowne Ravine, and Constable's cool tints' in the gallery of the British masters in Memorial Hall set people longing for the country and the shade of old poplars and elms.

I caught the last glimpse of the wide - spreading Quaker City from the connecting railroad bridge over the Schuylkill, with Girard Avenue bridge spanning the river below us, at midday of the 19th July. At five P.M. I was walking down West Street, New York, from the Pennsylvania Railroad ferry to Pier 28. My baggage was checked through to Boston, and I had nothing to do but saunter

down to the Fall River boat. Steam whistles were blowing, crowds rushing across to the ferries; hacks, horse-cars, drays, and express teams, blocking up every inch of way. The dialogue between the drivers at that hour is powerful and impressive. The scene is too familiar to New Yorkers to make them stop for a moment; but strangers must get even a better idea of the rush of an American city, from a view of West Street, at five o'clock in the afternoon, than even from Broadway at the same hour.

The steamship Providence was packed from stem to stern. The band was playing in the grand saloon, while the crowds, hurrying north to the mountains, or Newport, or the Maine watering-places, were promenading the decks. As we steamed slowly down the North River and swung around the Battery in full view of the Bay in the broad blaze of the evening sun, the scene was one which nature and the genius of commerce combined to make grand and inspiring.

There is nothing more glorious than a sail down the Sound in one of those palace steamboats on a fine July night, with a fresh breeze blowing and a brilliant sunset; nothing, unless it is the sail down Natragan sett Bay on the return trip to New York on a supernal night in late Sep; tember, with a full moon overhead and not a breath of wind stiring: The New Yorker, to whom he fall: River or Stonington boat is only the ferry to Boston, will talk to you of the Bay of Naples, but the sky and water around him would be enough to satisfy Ruskin.

Nature is doubtless best enjoyed in a solitary mood. Rousseau and Jean Paul Richter immerse themselves in its endless variety. But common man is gregarious, and a sense of companionship sometimes adds new emotions to a sunset at sea. Our reverie is tinged with the individualisms around us, and we float away

with the curly colored clouds into vanishing possibilities for ourselves and others.

One lights a cigarette after tea, and sauntering out on the upper saloon deck, pulls one of the small carpet stools towards him, and sits down with his arms over the rail of the ship, his face turned to the hazy descending sun glittering over the water. He is almost loath to think of ever quitting hold of life, everything seems so full of perfect harmony and beauty around him. The indistinct hum of voices behind him and around him chimes in with the feelings aroused by the gathering dusk. Family groups talk of Newport and the White Mountains. Some young fellows from the University of Pennsylvania are discussing the relative merits of the New Brunswick salmon rivers. All are full of the pleasures of expectancy.

Yet, were I to choose the time when the Sound travel is most enjoyable by association, it would be not in July, but on a rare night in the middle week of October, when the air is filled with a balmy haze, and the late harvest moon of the North steeps the whole scene in a bath of silver. People say to each other then: "This must be the Indian summer."

Ahwhite - veiled, soft-voiced wraith of the departed season! The true summer is gone. Tourists are flying south, homeward bound to New York or Philadelphia or Baltimigre; from New England and the Canadas. The boats are thronged with crowds brimful of sunburnt health and laughter. The pine-topped granite hills are behind them. The hum of the bees in the meadow-sweet behind the New Hampshire farmhouse in the hot summer mornings, is only a recollection. Friendships have been formed; the turn of a life perhaps decided. If a girl shivers in the cool night-air on deck, and draws her fall wrappings closer round her, has she any premonition of the icy breath of desertion? Partings are sad, even the parting with summer.