OFF GKAND MANAN. 



" From gray sea-fog, from icy drifts, 



From peril and from pain, 

 The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, 

 O hundred-harbored Maine ! " 



JOHN G. WHITTIER, The Dead Ship of Harpswell. 



JAEGERS. 1 



THE life of the great sea is not to be realized from the deck 

 of an ocean liner. You must be close down to the heave of 

 the ocean, tossed by it, and fully at its mercy, to know the sea. 



Suppose some day we were to join the porpoise fleet of the 

 Passamaquoddy Indians as they set out at sunrise in their 

 birch-bark canoes from the summer camp at Grand Manan Isl- 

 and the great bluff island off the mouth of the St. Croix River. 

 Theirs is a dangerous trade, but there are no bolder or more 

 skilful navigators of small boats in the world than these 

 Indians, who take the risks of a rock-bound coast, with sunken 

 ledges, sudden storms, the densest fogs, and a tide of almost 

 incredible height, that rushes through the narrows and sets in 

 motion great tidal currents and whirlpools. All sailors meet 

 hardships and see strange sights, but these Indians, hunters 

 of the ocean, see and know more strange and wonderful things 

 and take greater risks than the ordinary seafarer. 



What might befall us if we started with them some summer 

 morning at sunrise, when the surface of the sea is smooth and 



1 Pronounced ya-ger, with g hard ; also spelled jdger. 

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