NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 235 



coming down in a torrent that bore us rapidly 

 towards the sea. It was getting dusk when we 

 approached the most ticklish part of the naviga- 

 tion : we might truthfully have sung — 



" Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast. 

 The rapids are near and the daylight past " ; 



and under any other circumstances we would have 

 camped for the night ; but we were so anxious to 

 save our time with the steamer, that we determined 

 to chance the rapids, and kept on our way after 

 dark. It was a lovely night — a night the very 

 memory of which is soothing to the heart : a night 

 such as can be seen only in high latitudes ; for, in 

 spite of all the poetry that has been written on the 

 subject, I maintain that no sultry southern night 

 can compare in beauty with the great glory of the 

 moonlit or star-studded heavens revealed through 

 the clear and frosty atmosphere of the icy north. 

 The broad friendly moon rose above the pine trees, 

 climbed up among the stars, drowning their feeble 

 beams with a deepening flood of radiance, and 

 hung suspended in the heavens, a globe of mellow 

 light, searching out the secrets of the forest, shining 

 white on some fir-tree bleached and dead, throwing 

 black and awful looking shadows from the living 



