Extracts from a Journal of a Voyage of Visitation in the Hawk, 1859 | Page 9

scenery was heightened by the absence of all traces and signs of men or other animals; and the occasional scream of a gull looking down upon us, made the general silence and solitude more impressive. How prodigal is nature of her beauties and glories, thus repeated and renewed in places where there is no one to admire, and very few to see them!
Tuesday, July 19th. Seal Cove, and at sea.--The wind was not more favourable to day than yesterday, except that it was not so strong; but we thought it better to go out in the hope of some change, in the mean time beating to windward. After standing across the bay and back, a distance of nearly thirty miles (fourteen or fifteen each way), we found we had only gained a mile and a half, and the next tack only advanced us about as much more. The next time we stood across, the wind tailed us altogether. This was trying work, especially to my companions, who all felt the direful effect of the beating, and were recumbent nearly the whole day, and sometimes worse; I, happily, was able to read and write, and only grieved by the sad delay.
Wednesday, July 20th. At sea.--Dead calm nearly the whole day, with occasional interludes of head-wind, which enabled us to run across the bay, and make the unpleasant discovery that we had advanced, or gained, only about five miles since we left our anchorage yesterday! During the greater part of the day we were lying almost motionless. Eight o'clock P.M. found us just where eight o'clock A.M. had left us. A lesson in patience.
Thursday, July 21st. At sea, and Hooping Harbour.--After being becalmed all night, a light breeze sprung up in our favour at four o'clock A.M. (being then just off Little Cat Arm), which sufficed to carry us into Hooping Harbour (about thirty-five miles) by three o'clock P.M. Here are two families only, all the members of which, four in one, and eight in the other, were fortunately at home. One of the mothers is a Wesleyan, with all the scruples of her denomination. She had taught her children the Lord's Prayer, but could not teach them the Creed, because "it would be wrong for them to say, 'I believe in God,' when they did not believe in Him, which she perceived they did not." The truth, I imagine, was, she could not say it herself. She did not like to be godmother to her neighbour's children, because "she had sins enough of her own to answer for; and she could not make a promise she knew she should not perform." As she was the only grown-up woman in the place, except the one whose children, with her own, were to be baptized, it was necessary to overcome, if possible, these scruples, which was no easy matter. And here were fresh complications. Some of the children of both families had been baptized by a French priest, and no one could say "with what words." Some had been baptized by a woman, some by a fisherman. Painful it was to witness, or be certified of, such complications and irregularities, more so to be in any degree answerable for them, most of all to be expected to unravel and rectify them in one visit of a few hours' duration, knowing too that they must all be renewed and repeated. This is the only harbour in White Bay where there are any French, and these, it is worthy of notice, have come here within the last five years, since the two English families established themselves in the place. On their arrival this year, the French took up the Englishman's salmon nets, and prevented his fishing for three weeks, until they were informed by the officer sent from St. John's, that things were to remain this year as in the preceding, and until matters were settled by the authorities. The poor Englishman complains bitterly of being deprived of his three best weeks' fishery, which, if they had been only as good as the subsequent ones, must have been a serious loss. This day he took in his nets about a hundred salmon, and speaks of this as an ordinary catch--and his nets are not large or numerous. It would be very sad and shameful if this branch of the fishery, which clearly was not contemplated in the treaties, should be given up, either wholly or in part, to the French. This is the last harbour in White Bay.
Friday, July 22d. Hooping Harbour, at sea, and Englée.--We weighed anchor soon after four o'clock. The wind so light that our men were obliged to tow for nearly two hours; then it breezed up ahead, and gradually increased, till by the time we had beaten up to Canada