in a northeast
sea, waiting for daylight to assist us to Cape Canso Harbor and the
Little Ant. About six next morning we form one of a fleet of five or
six sail passing the striped lighthouse on Cranberry Island, and with
a rush go through the narrow passage lined with rocks and crowded with
fishermen. Out into the fog of Chedebucto Bay we soon pass and in the
fog we remain, getting but a glimpse of the shore now and then, till
we reach Port Hawkesbury.
JONA. P. CILLEY, JR.
* * * * *
ON BOARD THE "JULIA A. DECKER,"
OFF ST. JOHN'S BAY, NEWFOUNDLAND.
We are bowling along with a fine southwest wind, winged out, mainsail
reefed and foresail two-reefed, and shall be in the straits in about
two hours. The Julia is a flyer. Between 12 and 4 this morning we
logged just 46 knots, namely, 13.5 miles per hour for four hours. I
doubt if I ever went much faster in a sailing vessel. It is now about
10 o'clock, and we have made over 75 miles since 4.
All hands are on watch for a first glimpse of the Labrador coast,
which will probably be Cape Armours with the light on it.
I wrote last time from Hawkesbury in the Gut of Canso. We laid there
all day Monday, July 6th, as the wind, southeast in the harbor, was
judged by everybody to be northeast out in George's Bay, and
consequently dead ahead for us. Monday evening, at the invitation of
the purser, we all went down aboard the "State of Indiana," the
regular steamer of the "State Line" between Charlottetown, P.E.I., and
Boston, touching at Halifax, and in the Gut.
After going ashore we stayed on the wharf till she left, singing
college songs, giving an impromptu athletic exhibition, etc., to the
intense delight of about fifty small boys (I can't conceive where they
all came from), and the two or three hundred servant girls going home
to P.E.I. for a summer vacation.
I would put in here parenthetically, that since writing the above I
have been on deck helping jibe the mainsail, as we have changed our
course to about east by north, having rounded a couple of small low,
sandy islands off the Bay of St. John, and now point straight into the
strait of Belle Isle.
In the afternoon we examined some of the old red sandstone which
underlies all that part of Cape Breton Island, found some good
specimens, and some very plain and deep glacial scratches. There is
also some coal and a go
|