NOTES ON SABLE ISLAND—MACDONALD. aL 
this circumstance that brought us all out there in that terrific 
gale, as if Providence directed that we should all be out and all 
together so as to be the better prepared for what was going to 
follow. All of a sudden, we saw an object off the North side 
dead to windward which we first thought was a large bird, but 
shortly after discovered that it was a sail distant five or six miles, 
and that she was running down right before this tremendous gale 
dead ona lee-shore. We could work no more at the barrels. 
Our eyes were strained in the direction of the object that appear- 
ed to be running to inevitable destruction. My first impression 
was that it was the schooner Daring which had left the Island 
the evening before, and that they had met with some disaster so 
as to disable the vessel in the gale, and were going to run her on 
shore before night to save their lives. 
We could see that she was a schooner with a close-reefed main- 
sail set, steering directly for our flag-staff. I was convinced that 
it was my son, who with two of his sisters on board, and a great 
number of other passengers, were taking this method to preserve 
their lives. The sea was breaking everywhere off the North side 
as far as the eye could see, and it appeared almost incredible that 
any vessel could live to come so great a distance through such 
mountains of broken water. I got arope prepared, to assist in 
preserving the people’s lives should the vessel be able to reach 
the beach through the roaring and boiling mountains of water 
that surrounded her. When she approached within three miles 
of the land she appeared to be in the heaviest breakers, and we 
could plainly perceive mountain waves on each side of her that 
would raise their curled heads as .high as the tops of her masts 
and pitch over and fall with the weight of hundreds of tons, 
either of which would have been sufficient to have smashed that 
frail bark to atoms; but, miraculous as it may appear, not one of 
them touched her. At one moment you could just perceive the 
heads of her masts between the mountains of waters that were 
smashing and breaking to pieces all around, but not permitted 
to hurt her; at the next moment you would see her on the top 
of a tremendous wave which appeared like certain destruction to 
her; at another, you would see a mountain sea rising up before 
her and breaking all to fragments in her path, but when she 
arrived at the spot the surface was smooth as glass. When she 
arrived within one mile of the shore she had to pass over what 
we call the Outer Bar, where every sea broke from the bottom, 
and our greatest anxiety for the safety of the vessel was at this 
point. The sea was there breaking with tremendous violence, 
but that heaven-favored bark passed through untouched,—the 
