2*0 LIFE OP AUDUBON. 



fished for shells, with a capital dredge, and in another searched- 

 along the shore for eggs. The Papamaquody chief is seen 

 gliding swiftly over the deep in his fragile bark. He has 

 observed a porpoise breathing. Watch him, for now he is close 

 upon the unsuspecting dolphin. He rises erect ; aims his 

 musket : smoke rises curling from the pan, and rushes from the 

 iron tube, when soon after the report reaches the ear : mean- 

 time, the porpoise has suddenly turned back downwards ; it is 

 dead. The body weighs a hundred pounds or more, but this, to 

 the tough-fibred son of the woods, is nothing ; he reaches it 

 with his muscular arms, and, at a single jerk — while with his 

 legs he dexterously steadies the canoe — he throws it length- 

 wise at his feet. Amidst the highest waves of the Bay of 

 Fundy, these feats are performed by the Indians during the 

 whole of the season, when the porpoises resort thither. 



" You have often, no doubt, heard of the extraordinary tides 

 of this bay ; so had I, but, like others, I was loth to believe 

 that the reports were strictly true. So I went to the 'pretty 

 town of Windsor, in Nova Scotia, to judge for myself. 



" But let us leave the Fancy for awhile, and fancy ourselves 

 at Windsor. Late one day in August, my companions and I 

 were seated on the grassy and elevated bank of the river, about 

 eighty feet or so above its bed, which was almost dry, and 

 extended for nine miles below like a sandy wilderness. Many 

 vessels lay on the high banks, taking in their cargo of gypsum. 

 W^e thought the appearance very singular, but we were too late 

 to watch the tide that evening. Next morning we resumed 

 our station, and soon perceived the water flowing towards us, 

 and rising with a rapidity of which we had previously seen no 

 example. We planted along the steep declivity of the bank a 

 number of sticks, each three feet long, the base of one being placed 

 on a level with the top of that below it, and when about half flow 

 the tide reached their tops, one after another, rising three feet 

 in ten minutes, or eighteen in the hour, and at high water the 

 surface was sixty-five feet above the bed of the river. On look- 

 ing for the vessels which we had seen the previous evening, we 

 were told that most of them had gone with the night tide. 

 But now we are again on board the Fancy ; Mr. Claredge stands 

 near the pilot, who sits next to the man at the helm. On we 



