NE PVFO UNDLAND. 33 



priate sentinel, to guard the approach to those cold shores. 

 Next morning Cape St. Francis lay behind them, and the 

 ship was bowling along with a fair breeze into the ample 

 and beautiful Bay of Conception. The town of Carbo- 

 near (the third in size in the colony, being exceeded only 

 by St. John's and by Harbour Grace) lay near the head 

 of the long gulf. Philip was agreeably surprised by the 

 first sight of the town from on board. It was a much 

 more considerable place than he had expected to find. 

 The number, respectability, and continuity of the houses ; 

 the crowd of shipping, including a fleet of about seventy 

 schooners just about to start for Labrador ; the small 

 boats hurrying to and fro ; the multitude of cries at sea 

 and movement on the shore ; — all these made up a scene 

 very different from the desolation which, in his uninformed 

 fancy, the lad had imagined of Newfoundland. It was 

 early summer, too ; fields and gardens and potato-patches 

 mapped out the sides of the hills which formed an amphi- 

 theatre around the long lake-like harbour, and verdure 

 was smiling everywhere up to the very edge of the 

 universal dark environment of pine woods. 



Among- the first of those who came out in boats to 

 welcome the new-coming ship from England was William 

 Gosse, who, in his fraternal anxiety, had kindly drawn up 

 a code of regulations for his brother's behaviour in matters 

 of deportment and etiquette. Philip was unsophisticated 

 as well as unaffected ; he took this odd attention in the 

 spirit in which it was tendered, and endeavoured 

 scrupulously to observe the judicious precepts of his 

 nineteen years old brother. The presence of the Labrador 

 fleet was disturbing, and until these vessels were gone, he 

 was put, for a week or two, under the storekeeper, Mr. 

 Apsey. But as soon as the Labrador men had sailed 

 away, he took up his permanent place in the counting- 



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