18G9.] PLANTS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 257 



durinu- the expedition. A skiif and a couple of bark canoes for 

 ascending the rivers complete 1 our means of transit ; and on the 

 afternoon of the 12th June, La Providence set sail, and carried 

 us quietly down past the Falls of Moutmorenci and the Island 

 of Orleans. After a sail of three days, with varying breezes, 

 we anchored in Gaspe Basin after meeting large fleets of inward 

 bound vessels and several schools of porpoises, seeing diverse 

 whales spouting in the distance, admiring the scenery on the 

 south shore, feeling a few qualms of sea-sickness and experiencing 

 the other pleasures of a voyage down the Gulf. At Gaspe Basin 

 the services of an excellent canoe-man, well known to tourists and 

 explorers, were secured, and the schooner again headed out, in 

 the direction of the Magdalen Islands. In thirty six hours 

 we were sailing between the main island of the Magdalen 

 group and Isle Byron, and shortly after, with a stiff S.E. 

 wind and heavy sea, passed the small red-sandstone islands 

 known as the " Bird Bocks," on account of the immense 

 numbers of sea-fowl which continually float like a snow-storm in 

 the air around them, and whiten their tops and craggy sides. 

 The sea now becoming very rough, the captain put back, and, 

 with reefed foresail, lay-to for the following day under the lee of 

 the Magdalen Islands. The next day, however, we came in 

 sight of Cape Bay to the S.E., and in a short time Cape 

 Anguille, spotted with patches of snow, rose above the horizon. 

 Having soon after passed between the high headland of Cape 

 Anguille and the lower level land of Cape St. Georrf;e, we sailed, 

 with alternate breeze and calm, up the long tapering bay, or 

 rather gulf, of the latter name, which, at its head and along the 

 southern side,, receives numerous streams and rivers. The 

 water of the bay was covered with a coating of yellow pollen 

 from the fir-trees, which, being often blown from the flowers 

 in gi-eat quantities and washed down by the rain, is popularly 

 believed to be sulphur. Porpoises played around the schooner, 

 and numbers of gulls winged their way over-head, or rested 

 like white specks on the dark blue surface of the water, while 

 the slanting rays of the setting sun, reflected from the painted 

 or iron-stained cliffs of part of the southern shore, added to the 

 beauty of the scene. 



A long, low tongue of land runs out at the south side of the 

 bead of the Bay, forming an excellent harbour. In the morning 

 of the following day, a fair wind having sprung up, we ran merrily 



