IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 49 



would abandon me ; my neck, my shoulders, and, more than all, 

 my fingers, were almost useless through actual fatigue at draw- 

 ing. Who would believe this? Yet, nothing is more true. 

 When at the return of dawn my spirits called me out of my 

 berth, my body seemed to beg my mind to suffer it to rest a 

 while longer; and as dark forced me to lay aside my brushes 

 I immediately went to rest as if I had walked sixty-five miles 

 that day, as I have done a few times in my stronger days. Yes- 

 ternight, when I rose from my little seat to contemplate my 

 work and to judge of the effect of it compared with the nature 

 which I had been attempting to copy, it was the affair of a 

 moment; instead of waiting, as I always like to do, until the 

 hazy darkness which is to me the best time to judge of the 

 strength of light and shade, I went at once to rest as if delivered 

 from the heaviest task I ever performed. The young men think 

 my fatigue is added to by the fact that I often work in wet 

 clothes, but I have done that all my life with no ill effects. No ! 

 no ! it is that I am no longer young. But I thank God that I 

 did accomplish my task ; my drawings are finished to the best of 

 my ability, (and) the skins well prepared by John. 



On the 11th of August all hands parted with Labra- 

 dor without regret, and the captain of the Ripley steered 

 for Newfoundland, where they landed in St. George's 

 Harbor on the 13th. That region was searched for five 

 days, when a fresh start was made for Pictou, Nova 

 Scotia, but when they encountered head winds, Audu- 

 bon and his party were landed on the nearest shore 

 and made their way overland to the town. Thence they 

 proceeded to Truro and Halifax, and after three days 

 went on to Windsor, where they watched the famous 

 tides in the Bay of Fundy — emptying and filling a 

 broad river, and rising, in course, to a height of sixty-five 

 feet. From that point a steamboat was taken to St. 

 John, New Brunswick, where the faithful Harris 

 awaited the naturalist with tidings of his wife and elder 



