44 Deane, Audubon's Labrador Trip of 1833. [f"'^ 



Dr. William Ingalls's Recollections of the Labrador 



Trip. 



Roxbury, Mass., October 30, 1902. 

 My dear Sir: — 



Your letter of the 23rd gave me much pleasure and I will 

 "commence at the commencement" if you please. Under some 

 trifling ailment my father ^ bid me to bed and the next forenoon he 

 and Dr. George C. Shattuck ^ came to my bedside. Dr. Shattuck 

 looked at me a moment and both men turned away to the window; 

 presently Dr. Shattuck said to me, " William, my son George is 

 going to Labrador with Mr. Audubon, would you like to go with 

 him ? " I did not spring out of bed but I gras])ed his hand with 

 both of mine. How George and I got to Eastport I have not the 

 faintest idea, but I presume we took a run on the Mall and then 

 leaped from Boston to Eastport and if you do not believe this you 

 have no imagination. We waited two or three days for some last 

 things to be done and for Mr. Audubon. We five boys and Mr. 

 Audubon found in the after cabin of the schooner good and com- 

 fortable bunks. Captain Emery took care of himself. Our dining 

 room was midship and this was used when we had birds to skin 

 of an evening after a hunt, which we preserved with arsenic. I sup- 

 pose we were careful for no poisoning occurred. Now, on the 6th 

 of June, 1833, we left the wharf at Eastport, passed Lubec and 

 were fairly launched for our trip in the fine, but not very large 

 schooner 'Ripley.' Our first stopping place was the entrance to 

 the Gut of Canso, having passed Seal and Mud Islands. In our 

 row boat we went near the fine, beautiful clear rocks of the shore; 

 the water so clear we could see lobsters on the bottom, so we tickled 

 their backs with oars which they grasped with their great mandibles 

 and held on till they were let into the boat. 



Having passed through the gut entering St. LaAvrence Bay, we 

 came near the Gannett Rocks, four, rising with high perpendicular 

 sides. Many hundred Gannetts were upon the rocks and thousands 



1 Dr. William Ingalls, Sr. A celebrated physician in and about Boston, Mass ., 

 died in 1851. 



2 Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, born Templeton, Mass., July 17, 1783; died Boston, 

 Mass., March 18, 1854. At one time President Massachusetts Medical Society. 



