342 Life of Audubon, 



selves at the mouth of Bras d'Or Harbor, where we are 

 now snugly moored. We hoisted our colors, and Cap- 

 tain Billings, of American Harbor, came to us in his 

 Hampton boat, and piloted us in. This Bras d'Or is the 

 grand rendezvous of almost all the fishermen, that resort 

 to this coast for cod-fish ; and we found here a flotilla of 

 one hundred and fifty sails, principally fore-and-aft 

 schooners, and mostly from Halifax and the eastern 

 parts of the United States. 



" There was a life and bustle in the harbor which 

 surprised us, after so many weeks of wilderness and lone- 

 liness along the rocky coast. Boats were moving to and 

 fro over the whole bay, going after fish, and returning 

 loaded to the gunwale ; some with seines, others with 

 caplings, for bait, and a hundred or more anchored out 

 about a mile from us, hauling the poor cod-fish by thou- 

 sands, and hundreds of men engaged in cleaning and 

 salting them, and enlivening their w^ork with Billingsgate 

 slang, and stories, and songs. 



" As soon as breakfast was over we went ashore, and 

 called on Mr. Jones, the owner of the seal-fishing estab- 

 lishment here, a rough, brown-looking Nova-Scotia man, 

 who received us well, and gave us considerable informa- 

 tion respecting the birds which visit his neighborhood. 

 This man has forty Esquimaux dogs, and he entertained 

 us with an account of his travels with them in winter. 

 They are harnessed with a leather collar, belly and back 

 bands, through the upper part of which the line of seal- 

 skin passes which is attached to the sledge, and it serves 

 the double purpose of a rein and trace to draw with. An 

 odd number of dogs is used for the gang employed in 

 drawing the sledge, the number varying according to the 

 distance to be travelled or the load to be carried. Each 

 dog is estimated to carry two hundred pounds, and to 

 travel with that load at the rate of five or six miles an 



