58 OLD FORT ISLAND. 



We anchored here for the night, and in the morning continued 

 our journey, the destination of which was about fifty miles far- 

 ther down the coast. 



Saturday the 25th. About 11 o'clock, a. m., we reached Bonne 

 Esperance safe. Mr. William Whiteley, who resides here, and is 

 the magistrate of the coast, met us and invited us to his house. 

 Here we met a charming English- American family, and were cor- 

 dially entertained by them ; but as both the people, their work, and 

 this place will be more fully described farther on, I will not now 

 linger upon its attractions. In the afternoon we took a boat to Old 

 Fort island, a small island, though the largest for some miles around, 

 and were soon being piloted through the narrow passages so dan- 

 gerous to those not fully acquainted with their shoals and concealed 

 rocks, to the latter named place. I will leave the general features 

 of this place, also, to be described later in a little sketch entitled : 

 A Labrador Home. Here I have given an outline of the general 

 style of living in this region, as well as a description, also, of Old 

 Fort island, the place where we found ourselves at about five o'clock 

 the same evening, and where I remained for some time studying 

 the general appearance of the region, and making frequent excur- 

 sions in various directions to examine the peculiarities of the local- 

 ity in which I found myself placed. It was, I assure you, quite 

 pleasant to be on shore once more. 



Monday the 27th. This morning a party of us went out in a 

 boat for a short sail, taking our guns with us. The water was full 

 of birds, especially ducks and auks, as well as the other birds that 

 frequent this region in such abundance, and of which I shall speak 

 in other places ; while my attention was called particularly to the 

 ''sea duck," of which we shot several from flocks that chanced to 

 fly near enough to us. As the sea or eider duck is one of the pe- 

 culiar residents of this region, a few remarks upon it, collected 

 from the experience of my year's observation may not be uninter- 

 esting, so I give them. The sea duck, as it is here called, and 

 by the word here I mean all along the coast from Mingan — if not 

 from Quebec — to Red bay, perhaps beyond the Straits of Belle Isle, 



