WHALES, " BLOWING"— RED BAY. 241 



see them — the whales as they sported and spouted close to our 

 vessel, in spite of the foggy weather. We afterwards found 

 them very abundant in this vicinity, and often saw half a dozen 

 of them within a short distance of the vessel in different directions, 

 all spouting at the same time. They were probably of the species 

 called finbacks, since the " spout " corresponded to this class of 

 whales more closely, being a single stream sent upwards ten or 

 twelve feet in an almost perpendicular line, falling back again as 

 spray in nearly the same place. The sulphur bottom, the Green- 

 land, and the hump-backed whales, it is said, all blow a double col- 

 umn of water rather obliquely backwards ; the finbacks, a high 

 straight stream some twelve feet directly upwards to fall back again 

 to the same place as spray ; while the sperm whale shoots its single 

 stream somewhat forward, the spray falling forward and beyond the 

 head. Whether this distinction holds good in all cases I do not 

 know, but the seamen insist that it is invariably the case. 



During the night the wind sprang up and we drifted nearly to 

 Newfoundland. In the morning we found ourselves in sight of 

 houses two miles off the land ; in a short time we would have been 

 on shore. About daylight the wind started up. The outline of 

 the Labrador coast, the fog having cleared away by this time, showed 

 plain and clear. The various buildings along the coast, and the 

 highlands of Bradore, L'Anse Dune, Blanc Sablon, L'Anse Loup, 

 Forteau, and L'Anse Diable, appeared in rapid succession. We 

 noticed particularly the difference between Black or Pirouette 

 River, with its receding slopes, on the east, while the ridges of 

 the west coast extended away back into the country in the shape 

 of huge rows of hills, that, though well wooded, appeared barren 

 and desolate enough. 



On we sailed : from the correspondence of the coast line 

 to the position of Red Bay on our charts, I felt we must be near 

 that place ; and soon Saddle Island appeared ahead of us, and, with a 

 glass, we could plainly see the church on the hilltop, and the houses 

 on the slopes below. The passage to the harbor of Red Bay is 

 between Saddle Island and the mainland. It is very small and 

 16 



