Le Petit Nord | Page 5

the dangerous shore possible for navigation. As
the steamer puts in at Bear Cove, Poverty Cove, Deadman's Cove, and
Seldom-Come-By (this last from the fact that, although boats pass, they
seldom anchor there), out shoot the little rowboats to fetch their freight.
It is certainly a wonderfully fascinating coast, beautifully green and
wooded in the south, and becoming bleaker and barer the farther north
one travels. But the bare ruggedness and naked strength of the north
have perhaps the deeper appeal. To those who have to sail its waters
and wrest a living from the harvest of the sea, this must be a cruel shore,
with its dangers from rocks and icebergs and fog, and insufficient

lighting and charting.
Apart from the glory of the scenery the journey leaves much to be
desired, and the weather, being exceedingly stormy since we left the ice
field behind, has added greatly to our trials. The accommodations on
the boat are strictly limited, and it is crowded with fishermen going
north to the Labrador, and with patients for the Mission Hospital. As
they come on in shoals at each harbour the refrain persistently runs
through my head, "Will there be beds for all who come?" But the
answer, alas, does not fit the poem. Far from there being enough and to
spare, I know of two at least of my fellow passengers who took their
rest in the hand basins when not otherwise wanted. Tables as beds were
a luxury which only the fortunate could secure. Almost the entire space
on deck is filled with cargo of every description, from building lumber
to live-stock. While the passengers number nearly three hundred, there
are seating accommodations on four tiny wooden benches without
backs, for a dozen, if packed like sardines. Barrels of flour, kerosene, or
molasses provide the rest. Although somewhat hard for a succession of
days, these latter are saved from the deadly ill of monotony by the fact
that as they are discharged and fresh taken on, such vantage-points
have to be secured anew from day to day; and one learns to regard with
equanimity if not with thankfulness what the gods please to send.
There are many sad, seasick souls strewn around. If cleanliness be next
to godliness, then there is little hope of this steamer making the
Kingdom of Heaven. One habit of the men is disgusting; they
expectorate freely over everything but the ocean. The cold outside is so
intense as to be scarcely endurable, while the closeness of the
atmosphere within is less so. These are a few of the minor discomforts
of travel to a mission station; the rest can be better imagined than
described. If, to the Moslem, to be slain in battle signifies an immediate
entrance into the pleasures of Paradise, what should be the reward of
those who suffer the vagaries of this northern ocean, and endure to the
end?
[Illustration: SAD SEASICK SOULS STREWN AROUND]
My trunk is lost. In the excitement of carpentering incidental to the

cloudburst, the crew of the train omitted to drop it off at
Come-by-Chance. I am informed that it has returned across the country
to St. John's. If I had not already been travelling for a fortnight, or if
Heaven had endowed me with fewer inches so that my clothing were
not so exclusively my own, the problem of the interim till the next boat
would be simpler.
I have had my first, and I may add my last, experience of "brewis," an
indeterminate concoction much in favour as an article of diet on this
coast. The dish consists of hard bread (ship's biscuit) and codfish boiled
together in a copious basis of what I took to be sea-water. "On the
surface of the waters" float partially disintegrated chunks of fat salt
pork. I am not finicking. I could face any one of these articles of diet
alone; but in combination, boiled, and served up lukewarm in a soup
plate for breakfast, in the hot cabin of a violently rolling little steamer,
they take more than my slender stock of philosophy to cope with. Yet
they save the delicacy for the Holy Sabbath. The only justification of
this policy that I can see is that, being a day of rest, their stomachs can
turn undivided and dogged attention to the process of digestion.
Did I say "day of rest"? The phrase is utterly inadequate. These people
are the strictest of Sabbatarians. The Puritan fathers, whom we now
look back upon with a shivery thankfulness that our lot did not fall
among them, would, and perhaps do, regard them as kindred spirits.
But they are earnest Christians, with a truly uncomplaining selflessness
of life.
By some twist of my brain that reminds me of a story told me the other