Dear little grey old sister colony, lying far out from our eastern hem, where the broad Atlantic roars in from Ireland and flings itself on your beetling coast. And so that most wonderful of modern wizards, Marconi, has selected you for the greatest scientific experiment of the age! And now you will always be quoted through these vaster lands of ours as having been honored by science, and as having responded in all you old-time fidelity to Marconi's trust in you. You are nothing if not faithful. Faithful to yourself, to your grand little mother island across the seas, to the wanderer that sleeps within your gates, and to those who delight to honor you, and whom you honor in return.
When did I see you first, with your proud hillside city smiling down on that unrivalled harbor at its feet? For the moment your sturdy shoulder was bared to a gale that shrieked across the Cabot Straits, hurled itself against your iron and granite shores, that smiled with grim indifference alike on sea and hurricane. How that tempest roared across your five hundred miles of grandeur—rock and canyon, gorge and “topsail”—and swept unrelentingly over your Queen City, nestled in its southeastern fastnesses. And the city laughed mockingly at the gale, tossed its fogs seaward and lifted an untroubled brow above the driving winds and rains.
It was only when the next mainland mails arrived that we learned with horror that this same storm demon had wrecked far-away Galveston and plunged fair Texas in garbs of woe. But what cares Newfoundland for tempests? Oh, the stupendous beauty of her! How she laughed out at that storm—laughed in the security of her godlike strength, her immutable coasts. How quickly came her golden suns, her turquoise skies; how fair, oh! how indescribably fair, her harbor of St. John's, with its network of masts and rigging, its wealth of craft from every clime, and always and ever one or two of those grim old British battleships, with their sleepless eyes, waking and watchful, to guard this eldest born of all the lion's cubs; and away up on that glorious bit of rock crowned by the marine signal station, the vivid colors of the signal flags flare out across the sky, speaking so mutely, so momentously, to incoming ships at sea.
And it is here, on this ragged steep, that Marconi is winging his thought across the water wastes; here, where five hundred feet of perpendicular rock drops sheer to the ocean's edge; where “the Narrows,” linking the Atlantic with the loveliest harbor in the world, grin with their granite teeth at the sea; where the city sleeps at one's feet, and inland the large acres of countless homesteads stretch northward; where flocks of goats wander with nimble feet amongst the dizzy ledges, and the violet rim of sea and sky sweeps unbrokenly along the eastern horizon. Mine eyes have seen many of nature's wonders—the looming Rockies, the towering Selkirks, dark canyons where hurls the mighty Fraser—but the fairest thing I ever saw is the scene God gives one as he stands on Signal Hill. And when did I see you last, you beautiful, far-away City of St. John's? Ah, what a sight you were that day! Dark happenings in the vast Republic south of us had made the world shudder. “Will he live?” everyone was asking. “Will he live, that warrior, statesman, President, against which a demon hand had been lifted?” The train was swinging round Conception Bay, was climbing the awful steeps, was scurrying through its last hour of the overland run. All at once the city burst into view. The wonder of it, the marvel of it all! One long, simultaneous, sorrowful exclamation swept through the car, and then, the scene all blurred. Indistinctly I saw innumerable blotches of color showered over the entire city. On every building, on every ship in the crowded harbor, the stars and stripes hung listlessly—at half-mast. Not a breath stirred the air; old Signal Hill had buried her face in a veil of fog—mourning, mourning everywhere.
In mid-harbor H.M.S. Alert, taut and tidy, jaunty and trim as ever, had hoisted the American colors. Close to her lifted the huge bulk of that grand old battleship, H.M.S. Charybdis, “Old Glory” flying half way up her mainmast. Near by a big grey Norse merchantman, further on a Barbados liner, across harbor the sealers, the whalers, the countless coast craft paid the same tribute, simple but mighty in its import. One's eyes grew wet with watching. Here was this little, old, far-away British colony, struggling with poverty, torn by internal political controversy, this rugged, debt-ridden, yet wondrously wealthy, island, lifting its brave little head, and forgetting its own heartaches, while it called out in royal sympathy to the great, monied, luxurious country that wept out its grief in bitter tears under a southern sky.
Ah! you loyal little sea-girt sister of ours, we in Canada don't see you half as often as we should, but the ties are being daily more closely woven. Modern enterprise and capital have placed you nearer to us now; we can lean towards each other, clasp hands, and some day perhaps our fingers will forget to loose their clinging, and we will walk hand in hand throughout the years.