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It is nearly dark when we reach the head of the Bedford Basin. The noble harbor of Halifax narrows to a deep inlet for three miles along the rocky slope on which the city stands, and then suddenly expands into this beautiful sheet of water.

The fine dim night-time spaces of the Great Court are bound up with the inconclusive finales of mighty hot-eared wrangles; the narrows of Trinity Street and Petty Cury and Market Hill have their particular associations for me with that spate of confession and free speech, that almost painful goal delivery of long pent and crappled and sometimes crippled ideas.

We were pretty near the Narrows when I thought it was about time to let the captain, or one of the officers, know that there were some people on board who didn't intend to take the whole trip. I had read in the newspapers that committees and friends who went part way with distinguished people generally left them in the lower bay.

The horizon of our hopes and ambitions narrows, but the sky above is not less deep, and we make the wonderful discovery that the things that matter are very near to us. It is the homing of the spirit. We have been avid of the "topless grandeurs" of life, and we return to find that the spiritual satisfactions we sought were all the time within very easy reach.

Farther on, at a spot where the building narrows, the confessional forms a pendant to a statuette of the Virgin, clothed in a satin robe, coifed with a tulle veil sprinkled with silver stars, and with red cheeks, like an idol of the Sandwich Islands; and, finally, a copy of the "Holy Family, presented by the Minister of the Interior," overlooking the high altar, between four candlesticks, closes in the perspective.

You have, of course, guessed that this strait was the Narrows, which separates Staten Island from Long Island, and that the bay was the beautiful New York Bay. Verrazzano followed the shore of Long Island to a small island, which was likely Block Island. From this island he sailed into a harbor on the mainland, probably Newport, where he remained fifteen days.

Then at 12.22 the French predreadnoughts Suffren, Gaulois, Charlemagne, and Bouvet approached to about 9000 yards and by 1.25 had for the time being silenced the batteries of the Narrows. In the maneuvering and withdrawal, the Biouvet was sunk by a drifting mine with a loss of over 600 men, and the Gaulois was hit twice under water and had to be beached on an island outside the Straits.

Its extreme length is about 60 m., and its greatest width 38; but it narrows so rapidly westwards that where it abuts on Devon its average width is only 15 m. In point of size it stands seventh on the list of English counties, having an area of over a million acres, or 1633 square m. It lies between10' and50' W. longitude, and 50° 50' and 51° 30' N. latitude.

Below you roars the foaming cataract, thundering downward and filling the whole air with its white spray. Above, on either side, are lofty, precipitous rocks, the crests of which are crowned by buildings. This is the town as seen from beneath. No wonder it is called "the City in the Air." As you advance the chasm narrows.

The Athenians now built their wall higher, and in future kept guard at this point themselves, disposing their confederates along the remainder of the works, at the stations assigned to them. Nicias also determined to fortify Plemmyrium, a promontory over against the city, which juts out and narrows the mouth of the Great Harbour.