274 AFFAIRS AT THE ISLAND. 



Still afforded the roast duck of the noon or evening meal ; and 

 many a morning have I been out before breakfast and brought 

 home a bag literally full of plover and beach birds for the meal. 

 Good cheer, and plenty of it, was never wanting now. Soon the 

 men began to trim their boats for the fishing season, now nearly 

 upon them, and all around us was activity and life. A curious ex- 

 ample of how everything is turned to use occurred recently. There 

 had been a wreck somewhere off the coast, and several dead sheep 

 had been picked up just off shore. Of these the skin was carefully 

 saved, the tallow melted down and turned into homemade candles, 

 while the carcasses were salted down to serve as food for the dogs 

 the ensuing winter. The candles were, to be sure, a rather poor 

 apology for such articles, and their wicking simply pieces of cotton 

 cloth, but they answered every purpose. 



The fishing season was now well advanced, and a trip to Bonne 

 Esperance assured me that the people generally along the coast 

 were in "great humor" over the unusually large "catch" offish 

 which was everywhere reported ; but our chief delight centred 

 in the letters and papers from home which were found await- 

 ing our arrival, and glad indeed we were to get them. In the 

 evening we were treated to what at home we should call a mild 

 thunderstorm, and were informed that it was "the most terrible one 

 that had ever visited the coast. " Such storms are, indeed, quite 

 rare here, and there is seldom even what we should call a " hard 

 rain. " The next day the sky cleared most beautifully, and we 

 had one of the finest days I have ever seen on the coast. 

 In the evening one of the fishermen brought in a seventy-five 

 pound cod, and it was an enormous fellow, the largest I had ever 

 seen. The day following, as it was warm and pleasant, I took my 

 first and last plunge bath and swim, off the dock, in Labrador water. 

 It is safe to say, that in those five minutes there must have been a 

 change of temperature in my body of at the very least one hundred 

 degrees, in the shade at that. I never attempted it again. 



Thus we pass away the time. Day follows day in quick succes- 

 sion, while all is pleasure botli within and without ; but all pleasures 



