•^48 Life of Auduhon. 



These icebergs are common here all summer, being waft- 

 ed from the lower end of the straits with every heavy 

 easterly wind or gale. And as the winds generally pre- 

 vail from the south and south-west, the coast of New- 

 foundland is more free from them than Labrador ; and 

 the navigation along the straits is generally performed 

 along the coast of Newfoundland. My time and our 

 days now weigh heavily on our hands ; nothing to be 

 seen, nothing to be shot, therefore nothing to be drawn. 

 I have now determined on a last thorough ransack of 

 the mountain tops, and plains, and ponds, and if no suc- 

 cess follows, to raise anchor and sail towards the United 

 States once more ; and blessed will the day be when I 

 land on those dear shores where all I long for in this 

 world exists and lives, I hope. 



'■'■August 2. Thermometer 58° at noon. Thank God 

 it has rained all day. I say thank God, though rain is 

 no rarity, because it is the duty of every man to be thank- 

 ful for whatever happens by the will of the Omnipotent 

 Creator ; yet it was not so agreeable to any of my party 

 as a fine day would have been. We had an arrival of a 

 handsome schooner, called the Wizard, from Boston to- 

 da}^, but she brought neither papers nor letters ; but we 

 learned that all our great cities have a healthy season, 

 and we thanked God for this. The retrograde movement 

 of many land and water birds has already commenced, 

 especially of the lesser species. 



'■'■August 3. The Wizard broke her moorings and ran 

 into us last night, causing much alarm but no injur}^ 

 The iceberg of which I have spoken has been broken 

 into a thousand pieces by the late gale, and now lies 

 stranded along the coast. One such monster deposits 

 hundreds of tons of rocks, and gravel, and boulders, and 

 so explains the phenomena which I have before men- 

 tioned as observable along the coast. 



