young seals
are nursed for a few days; then, answering the loud calls of their
mothers, they accompany them into the briny deep, there to follow the
promptings of their instincts. The loud roarings of the old seals on
these ice rafts can be heard in a quiet night for several miles, and
strike terror into the heart of the superstitious sailor who is ignorant
of the origin of the tumult.

Frequently dense fogs cover the water, and while slowly moving along,
guided only by the needle, a warning sound alarms the watchful master.
Through the heavy mists comes the roar of breaking waters. He listens.
The dull, swashy noise of waves meeting with resistance is now plainly
heard. The atmosphere becomes suddenly chilled: it is the breath of
the iceberg!

Then the shrill cry of "All hands on deck!" startles the watch below
from the bunks. Anxiously now does the whole ship's company lean upon
the weather-rail and peer out into the thick air with an earnestness
born of terror. "Surely," says the master to his mate, "I am past the
Magdalens, and still far from Anticosti, yet we have breakers; which
way can we turn?" The riddle solves itself, for out of the gloom come
whitened walls, beautiful but terrible to behold.

Those terror-stricken sailors watch the slowly moving berg as it drifts
past their vessel, fearing that their own ship will be drawn towards it
from the peculiar power of attraction they believe the iceberg to
possess. And as they watch, against the icy base of the mountain in the
sea the waves beat and break as if expending their forces upon a rocky
shore. Down the furrowed sides of the disintegrating berg streamlets
trickle, and miniature cascades leap, mingling their waters with the
briny sea. The intruder slowly drifts out of sight, disappearing in the
gloom, while the sailor thanks his lucky stars that he has rid himself
of another danger. The ill-omened Anticosti, the graveyard of many
seamen, is yet to be passed. The ship skirts along its southern shore,
a coast destitute of bays or harbors of any kind, rock-bound and
inhospitable.

Wrecks of vessels strew the rocky shores, and four light-houses warn
the mariner of danger. Once past the island the ship is well within
the estuary of the gulf into which the St. Lawrence River flows,
contributing the waters of the great lakes of the continent to the
sea. As the north coast is approached the superstitious sailor is
again alarmed if, perchance, the compass-needle