32 NOTES ON SABLE ISLAND—-MACDONALD. 
sea became smooth before her, and she left a shining track behind. 
Now, here was the miracle. I looked on this with wonder, awe 
and admiration, and not without hope. When she approached a 
little nearer, I could see one man lashed to the helm and two 
men forward lashed by each of the fore-shrouds, and by each 
man a large cask standing on end. We could also see that the 
two men were making great exertions with their arms, as if 
throwing something up in the wind. The vessel had now passed 
the most dangerous place, and her safety seemed certain —I could 
breathe much freer than I had done for some minutes. Another 
half-mile brought her to the beach, and her bow struck the sand. 
From this spot to the high bank was about fifty or sixty yards 
over a flat beach, which was always dry except in heavy gales, 
but was now covered over with water. A number of heavy seas 
would roll together over the beach, and then recede, leaving it 
dry. Over this place myself and the men were extended with a 
rope leading from the bank down to the vessel’s bow, on which 
we held to keep the sea from washing us away; and when the 
oreat body of water receded, we could approach as near as the 
jib-boom end, from which, one by one, the crew lowered them- 
selves by a rope into our arms, and we passed them in safety to 
the bank. 
“The Schooner was the Arno, Capt. Hicerns, with twelve 
men, from Quero Bank, where they had been fishing. They left 
the Bank at the commencement of the gale. He had lost all his 
head sails when at daylight this morning he made the land dead 
under his lee, with the gale blowing right on shore. The vessel 
having no head-sail, he could do nothing with her on a wind. 
He let go his anchor in twenty fathoms of water, paid out three 
hundred fathoms of hemp cable, and brought the vessel head to 
wind. In that tremendous sea he held on until noon, when, seeing 
no prospect of the gale abating, he cut his cable and put the 
vessel before the wind, preferring torun her on shore before night 
to riding there and foundering at her anchor. He lashed him- 
self to the helm, sent all his men below but two, and nailed up 
the cabin-doors. He had two large casks placed near the fore- 
shrouds and lashed there. He then directed his two best men to 
station themselves there and lash themselves firmly to the casks, 
which were partly filled with blubber and oil from the fish. They 
had each a wooden ladle about two feet long, and with those ladles 
they dipped up the blubber and oil, and threw it up in the air as 
high as they could. The great violence of the wind carried it far 
to leeward, and, spreading over the water, made its surface smooth 
before her and left a shining path behind; and although the sea 
