Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the Hawk, 1859 | Page 6

board a trader
lying in the harbour to purchase clothes; several came from a distance
against a head wind. Two couples were married before, and two after,
the prayers; six children of one of the pairs were admitted into the
Church: all had been baptized by lay hands. Two women, neighbours,
had each baptized the other's children. After the services, I gave away a
number of elementary books for children; three or four Prayer-books,
and one Bible were purchased. At two o'clock they all took their
departure, with many expressions of pleasure and gratitude. We got
away just before a violent north-easter (a wind which always comes, as
they say, with the butt end first), which carried us rapidly to Gold Cove,
at the head of the bay. It is a snug, well-sheltered place, but the water is
deep almost up to the shore; and we moored, for the first time in my
experience, to a tree. However, we found bottom at about sixteen
fathoms, and plenty of fish upon it. One of my companions jigged nine
fine fish in an hour. The others went off to visit the people, who were at
some distance, and apprize them, as usual, of our presence and purpose.
A more secluded, retired spot could hardly, I think, be found, or more
picturesque withal. Wild gooseberries grow on the shore in abundance,
and, of course, other fruits, which no hand gathers and no eye sees.
Here the people report themselves to have been very successful in their

fishery this year. It is the first place where we have heard of success.
Thursday, July 14th. At Gold Cove.--Some of our congregation came
on board before nine o'clock, but others, having to contend with a head
wind, did not arrive till 10.30. Ten o'clock was the hour named for
service; and after all were assembled on deck, it took some
considerable time to arrange and prepare the sponsors, &c., and instruct
them in the answers they would be required to make. On this occasion,
a father of eleven children desired to be baptized, and was baptized
conditionally with six of his children. He had never been able to learn
that he had received baptism even by lay hands. Nevertheless, he bore
the two honoured names of Basil and Osmond, and by that of Basil he
was now baptized and received into the Church. Sixteen persons were
received; the oldest sixty-five years of age, the youngest four months.
One couple was married, and one woman received the Holy
Communion. Most of the grown-up persons, all, I believe, except some
invalids, came to our second service in the evening. Between the
services we sailed in our boat to the head of this bay, where we found
three small rivers or brooks meeting and running by one mouth into the
sea. The water was very clear and sweet; and nothing of the kind could
exceed the picturesque beauty of the lofty and precipitous hills, clothed
and covered with trees from the base to the summit. I can hardly fancy
a greater treat than to sail for three or four weeks through the reaches
and tickles of this bay, which has the singular advantage of being free
from rocks and shoals, with abundance of good and safe harbours,
almost all surrounded by hills and headlands of picturesque outline,
covered with trees, against which no feller has raised his axe. Our
harbour this evening appeared alive with fish.
Friday, July 15th. Gold Cove, at sea, Purbeck Cove.--Went on deck at
4.35, and found a fine morning and fair wind, but no captain or crew:
the mate in the boat fishing. Called the captain, and recalled the mate,
not without some displeasure at both for neglecting to get under way.
We got away at 5.30, and had a very pleasant sail to Purbeck Cove,
which we reached at nine o'clock. It is a fine harbour, but like most in
this bay with very deep water. We found here a Mr. C----, with a vessel
and crew from Greenspond for the summer fishery. He reported

favourably of his catch, and speaks of the bay as generally very prolific.
Besides cod-fish, salmon, and trout in abundance, later in the fall he
expects to catch mackerel; and this is the only bay in which, at present,
they are found in Newfoundland. Deer also abound in the
neighbourhood; some have been killed lately, and more might be found
if the people cared to look after them; but they are not yet in season,
and the fishing is not neglected for any thing or all things. This is the
great harvest; the seals are the first, but more uncertain and less
lucrative; late in the fall the deer are slaughtered; and in the winter
other game, with foxes, martens,