THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF PERC& 1 



GANNETS. 



" Now, brothers, for the icebergs 



Of frozen Labrador, 

 Floating spectral in the moonshine 



Along the low, black shore ! 

 Where like snow the gannets' feathers 



On 'Brador's rocks are shed 



And the noisy murres are flying 



Like black scuds overhead." 



JOHN G. WHITTIER, The Fishermen. 



You may go with me to the coast of Labrador, sailing 

 among the bluff and dangerous islands off the mouth of the 

 St. Lawrence in a cold wind, a chilling fog, and a short, chop- 

 ping sea. This was the region that Jacques Cartier visited 

 hundreds of years ago, and the scene is not so very different 

 now from that he saw then. It does not take much imagina- 

 tion to fancy ourselves in his rude ship, beating up to the 

 shores of this new-found and dangerous land. Still we find 

 the rough rocks, topped with dark evergreens, stunted by the 

 cold winds, still the same sullen sea and inhospitable climate, 

 and still the hosts of gannets whitening the tops of the ledges 

 "a great -and infinite number of gannets which are white 

 and bigger than any geese," wrote Cartier, "and which bite 

 even as dogs." 



Within the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, formed by the open 

 jaws of the bay and the great island of Newfoundland, are the 



1 Pronounced per-say, in two syllables, though the fishermen make but one 

 syllable, perse. 



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