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AUDUBON 



jargon, about one third of which I understood, and aban- 

 doned the rest to a better linguist, should one ever come 

 to the island. She was a plain, good woman, I doubt not, 

 and the wife of an industrious fisherman. We walked 

 through the woods, and followed the road to the church. 

 Who would have thought that on these wild islands, among 

 these impoverished people, we should have found a church; 

 that we should have been suddenly confronted with a 

 handsome, youthful, vigorous, black-haired, black-bearded 

 fellow, in a soutane as black as the Raven's wedding-dress, 

 and with a heart as light as a bird on the wing? Yet we 

 met with both church and priest, and our ears were saluted 

 by the sound of a bell which measures one foot by nine and 

 a half inches in diameter, and weighs thirty pounds ; and this 

 bell may be heard a full quarter of a mile. It is a festival 

 day, La Petite Fete de Dieu. The chapel was illuminated 

 at six o'clock, and the inhabitants, even from a distance, 

 passed in ; among them were many old women, who, staff 

 in hand, had trudged along the country road. Their backs 

 were bent by age and toil, their eyes dimmed by time; 

 they crossed their hands upon their breasts, and knelt 

 before the sacred images in the church with so much 

 simplicity and apparent truth of heart that I could not 

 help exclaiming, " This is indeed religion ! " The priest, 

 P^re Brunet, is originally from Quebec. These islands 

 belong, or are attached, to Lower Canada ; he, however, is 

 under the orders of the Bishop of Halifax. He is a shrewd- 

 looking fellow, and, if I mistake not, has a dash of the devil 

 in him. He told me there were no reptiles on the island, 

 but this was an error; for, while rambling about, Tom 

 Lincoln, Ingalls, and John saw a snake, and I heard Frogs 

 a-piping. He also told me that Black and Red Foxes, 

 and the changeable Hare, with Rats lately imported, were 

 the only quadrupeds to be found, except cows, horses, and 

 mules, of which some had been brought over many years 

 ago, and which had multiplied, but to no great extent. The 



