186 CAPTAIN CiiRTWRIGHT'S 



were to perish with cold or of dropping over the 

 precipice, which was at least twenty feet high, at 

 the risk of breaking our bones on the fragments 

 of rocks beneath, unless they were sufficiently cov- 

 ered with snow to break our fall. On searching 

 my pockets, I found a fathom of cod-line, one end 

 of which I tied to a small birch tree, which grew 

 close to the top, eased myself down over the edge, 

 and then dropped as soft as on a feather-bed; and 

 Jack followed in the same manner; our guns, 

 rackets, and hatchets, having been previously 

 thrown down. We soon after came into Laar 

 Cove, and returned home along the back-shore, on 

 which we found a yellow-fox and a marten in two 

 of my traps. 



Thursday, Decemher 21, 1775. We had a capital 

 silver-fox, a good cross-fox, and a marten in the 

 traps, and shot a spruce-game. Many foxes had 

 been in my walk, and several of my traps were 

 robbed. I gave out twenty-one traps to the seal- 

 ers. I have now thirty-one in my walk, and Jack 

 has nineteen in his. 



Sunday, December 24, 1775. Jack and I looked 

 at our traps and each of us brought in a yellow- 

 fox. The sealers, according to custom, began to 

 usher in Christmas, by getting shamefully drunk. 



Thursday, January 4, 1776. I sent John Hayes 

 and one of the western furriers to reconnoitre the 

 country about Cape North, and the rest of us went 

 round our traps. The eastern furriers followed 

 the wolf which carried off the trap yesterday, and 

 met with it near Goose Cove ; it proved a grizzled 



