ly have run for it. Alas, however, the banks of
Newfoundland--which, after all I had heard mentioned on our voyage, I
imagined to be grassy slopes glittering with daisies, and yellow with
daffodils--are but sand heaps some two hundred fathoms down in "the
ocean blue;" and all one ever knows of them is the small geological
specimens brought up on the tallowed end of the deep-sea lead. Escape,
therefore, was for the present out of the question; but the steady
determination to attempt it was spared me by a circumstance that
occurred about a week later.

After some days of calm, common enough in these latitudes, a slight but
steady breeze set in from the northeast, which bore us up the Gulf with
easy sail till we came in sight of the long, low island of Anticosti,
which, like some gigantic monster, raises its dark, misshapen beach
above the water. Not the slightest trace of foliage or verdure to give
it a semblance to the aspect of land. Two dreary-looking log-houses,
about eighteen miles apart, remind one that a refuge for the shipwrecked
is deemed necessary in this dangerous channel; but, except these, not a
trace exists to show that the foot of man had trod that dreary spot.

The cook's galley is sure to have its share of horrors when a ship
"lies to" near this gloomy shore; scarcely a crew exists where some
one belonging to it has not had a messmate wrecked there; and then, the
dreadful narratives of starvation, and strife, and murders, were too
fearful to dwell on. Among the horrors recorded on every hand all agreed
in speaking of a terrible character who had never quitted the island for
upwards of forty years. He was a sailor who had committed a murder under
circumstances of great atrocity, and dared not revisit the mainland, for
fear of the penalty of his guilt. Few had ever seen him; for years back,
indeed, he had not been met with at all, and rumor said that he was
dead. Still, no trace of his body could be found, and some inclined to
the opinion that he might at last have made his escape.

He was a negro, and was described as possessing the strength of three or
four men; and although the proverbial exaggeration of sailors might, and
very probably did, color these narratives, the sad fate of more than one
party who had set out to capture him, gave the stories a terrible air
of truth. The fear of him was such that although very liberal terms
had been offered to induce men to take up their abode in the island to
su