ness the wire should have, that the plug might break it on the shell touching the ground. It required many experimental rounds before I found that the graze was in dynamical effect only equal to a vertical drop of the fuse on its head of 3 feet.

I had to employ a special mechanic, and also ran up a good-sized bill for powder and shell used in experimental work at Shoeburyness, but had the satisfaction, at a competitive trial of fuses with several other inventors, of beating them all. I was in hopes of further special trials of my fuse and its being adopted into the service for some reason, however, the Ordnance committee thought it better not to interfere with the regulation time fuse, but in consequence of what I had brought forward in artillery matters my large bill for powder and shell was cancelled.

During my different visits to Shoeburyness I thought I saw my way to some improvements in connection with gunnery, and also armour - plate backing, which would doubtless have involved me in considerable expenditure with a very doubtful return; so it was perhaps just as well that I received orders to embark for Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I was to be garrison instructor-a new appointment at large stations-for the purpose of teaching young officers field fortification, military sketching, administration, and tactics.

CHAPTER XI.

CANADA.

ALL the world being at peace, a staff appointment, even on the other side of the Atlantic, was worth having. Little did we know what was so soon to happen in Europe. Within six weeks of leaving England the Franco-Prussian war began. It was a bitter disappointment losing all chance of being attached to one of the armies; but as I could not speak German, I should have done all I could to join the French, and it was perhaps fortunate for me that I did not do so, seeing the disasters which came upon our old allies, amongst whom I had several friends.

The voyage to America was uneventful, but I again had an instance of the carelessness with which ships are navigated. In a dense fog off the banks, when going slow, we suddenly saw right in front of us, high in the air, the royals of a sailing ship. We just

Our

managed to clear her as she shaved past us. captain asked why they had not sounded the fog-horn. "Can't it's broken," was the answer as the fog again shut her in.

In clear weather Halifax harbour is easy of entrance, but on a dirty night, or when there is a fog-bank close inshore, the broken rocky coast of Nova Scotia requires

to be approached with extreme caution. From want of care many a fine ship has been shattered to pieces close to its port, a notable instance being the White Star liner Atlantic, when some 500 people were drowned. A friend asked me to drive down with him to the wreck. Fortunately I was unable to do so he saw 150 bodies laid out on the rocks.

Once inside the heads, the great harbour is perfection, completely sheltered, and with deep water right up to the shore. The construction of wooden wharves and jetties-masonry is unnecessary-is a simple matter, and huge ships may be alongside them with their bowsprits almost projecting into the main

street.

Timber being very plentiful, the houses were all built of wood, but the city suffered so much whenever a fire broke out that all new houses were required to be of masonry. Thirty years ago, however, Halifax might shortly be described as a picturesque oldfashioned Canadian town, with little trade except to the West Indies and South America, whose negro and Roman Catholic population bought the fish which came in from the banks. The smell from the great warehouses of salt cod near the wharves extended at times over the city,-a pleasant bouquet, doubtless, to the owners of the fish, but not to other people, especially strangers. The western side of Nova Scotia, looking towards the United States, is very fertile, but the east is rock and pine forest. This may account for the fact that although Halifax has one of the finest harbours in the world, it has as a commercial port remained almost stationary, and although one of the oldest cities in America, has not even now more than 50,000 inhabitants. The winter in Nova Scotia is

REMARKS ON HALIFAX.

155

tedious commencing in November, the first part of it, when the great lakes are frozen, and give miles of splendid skating, is pleasant enough, but in December the snow comes down. Sleighs and snow-shoes then come into use; but without some special object in view the latter mode of progression soon becomes irksome, and sleighing in Nova Scotia with a cutting wind, which is so often the case, is very different from the pleasure of driving in the still, bright atmosphere of Toronto or Montreal. Toboganning and rink-skating are amusing, but five months of them and nothing else are rather monotonous. The cold is at times intense. I shall not easily forget one morning going down to my office with the thermometer 18° below zero, in half a gale of wind. On that day the ink-bottles in the class-room had to be kept on the stove; even then the ink froze in the pens. The wooden houses were comfortable; but even with stoves going all night, I have noticed, on walking from my bathroom after using warm water, that the mark of my footsteps became ice before I had reached the fire in my bedroom. The rivers break up in April, the ice going out to sea in great masses, and from then until the beginning of October the climate is perfect, and the fishing and shooting one gets between those dates almost make up for the discomforts of winter.

Halifax has, or had thirty years ago, one advantage -extremely cheap provisions. As an example I may mention my servant returning from market one day in winter with a turkey, two geese, two chickens, two brace of partridge, and three dozen eggs, at an expenditure of 15s. Fish was good and plentiful, as were also oysters and lobsters, the latter being only 1s. per dozen; but not even the most magnificent

lobsters at one penny each could make up for the isolation of Halifax from the world on the other side of the Atlantic. We had only a fortnightly mail from England, and that was usually late during the winter: on one occasion the steamer did not arrive with our letters for ten days after they were due.

Although the preparation of a lecture may require the expenditure of much time and trouble, its delivery requires no great mental effort; but teaching, when one has almost to transfer one's power of thought, if not actually one's brains, into the heads of those who have never been trained to think for themselves, is most exhausting. After a long spell of it I found perfect rest absolutely necessary; and my most easy way of getting it was, when the work admitted of it, to disappear for a few days with the two Indians I usually employed, and live the life of a savage in the woods, carrying the few things we required, and living on salt pork and biscuits and the trout and tree-partridges we got.

Sea-fishing in the harbour in the afternoon and evening in fine weather was a great relaxation. I often loaded my boat with a hand-line, and got great hauls on set lines: on one occasion I caught more than I bargained for. Getting in the line, a mass of seaweed, with something else enclosed in it, came up, the hook being fast in blue cloth. As there was a German emigrant ship in quarantine with cholera on board, I was not long in cutting the mass adrift, and letting it sink into deep water again. Lobster-spearing in the shallows in the warm summer nights by the aid of a birch-bark torch was a new but very amusing sport. The so-called spear was composed of a pair of stiff wooden clips, which went