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

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, &c., afford sport and means of subsistence. Seeing several boats fishing outside, I despatched my friends to inform the men who and what we were, and to request them, if possible, to bring their families on board in the afternoon. Fortunately they were able to communicate