Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
1899 - Halifax

Fifty miles south of Minas Başin, on the Atlantic coast, is Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. The harbor can shelter a thousand ships, and is well defended by forts. They frown down from the heights on the shores of the harbor, and from many of the islands. If a war-ship could, by hook or by crook, slip past the forts up to the city, she could be instantly blown to pieces by cannon from Fort St. George on Citadel Hill.

The hill, a low one, only about two hundred and fifty feet in height, rises back of the city. It is crowned by a high, rectangular, grassy mound on whose summit floats the red and blue flag of England, with the Union Jack. It is after you have entered the fort that its true strength becomes known to you. Beneath the grass work are the real walls of the fort, built of stone and masonry, and exceedingly thick . The fort contains many lofty, echoing passages and spacious chambers.

Have you ever seen an ant's nest in the pasture ? It is a great, grassy mound, on the surface , but within , if you should open it by means of a walking stick , you would find innumerable, galleried chambers, the scene of much busy life. It is just so with these forts. They are great, silent mounds ; but within are many chambers, through which echo and re-echo the busy steps and voices of active soldiers.

Halifax is the chief English naval station on the Atlantic seacoast of North America. As we have seen, it is well defended by forts, and men -of-war are continu ally hovering about the harbor. It is to Halifax that vessels turn if any accident befalls them on the passage between the New and the Old World .

The World and Its People, Book IV, Our American Neighbors by Fanny E Coe, 1899, Page 34-35

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