CRUISE OF LA BELLE MARGUERITE 



the ice a hundred and fifty miles up the Romaine 

 River one winter, hunting and dragging stores 

 on a sled for men who were measuring and 

 charting that great stream. His clever pan- 

 tomime made his patois more intelligible, and 

 every now and then he would favour us with 

 snatches of song. He was a merry fellow. The 

 songs of Mathias were slower and more solemn, 

 and I often wondered whether they were not 

 some of the old songs brought by the Acadians 

 from France in 1605. His family name is 

 among the list of those expelled from the basin 

 of Minas in 1755. 



Sunday, May 3oth, was a cloudy, rainy day 

 with a cold northeast wind, and, under reefed 

 sails, we threaded the narrow passages among 

 the islands in a manner that showed a wonderful 

 knowledge of this region by our men. The charts 

 we brought with us they never looked at, and 

 indeed these charts showed but a small part of 

 these islands and of the intricacies of the coast. 

 Up Yellow Bay, a-long, narrow land-locked pas- 

 sage, we sailed with apparently no chance of 

 escape, but suddenly we opened up what on 

 the eastern coast would be called a "tickle," 

 and through this we glided to the open sea. 



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