ARRIVAL AT ANTICOSTI 



149 



usual through hard weather. We came upon the island at the 

 east end, where we found a "one-sided harbor," which we were 

 told was safe even in the heaviest easterly gales, to which it 

 lay wide open. We were advised to trust it, for about the time 

 when we were scared to death we should find that it was safe. 

 This we had a quick chance to prove, for we were hardly an- 

 chored before the testing storm came. Fortunately we had good 

 ground tackle, three anchors, and chain enough for a ship of three 

 times the size. With them on a good bottom we rode on a moun- 

 tain of sea until it seemed that the craft must drag under or pull 

 her nose off. I remember wondering that a pint of water poured 

 out at six feet above the deck at the foremast would all be blown 

 over the stern. Just as the situation seemed about as bad as a 

 sea-storm can bring, the sea began to break on a bar outside of 

 us and almost in a moment we were in water so still that we 

 could easily launch a boat and go to the shore a cable's length 

 away. I have seen this beautiful process when a very slight in- 

 crease in the height of the waves would thus create calm on 

 other occasions, but never before or since when it brought so 

 sudden a reprieve from what seemed to be very imminent 

 danger. 



