HE S. S. Kyle was a seaworthy 
craft. She wallowed and plunged 
through the waves as nimbly as 
any porpoise. The night our little 
group of sportsmen bound for New- 
foundland put to sea from the min- 
ing town of North Sydney was as 
stormy a one as had been seen on the 
Nova Scotian coast that season, so our 
good ship had ample opportunity to 
prove her seaworthiness. 
As we stood on the forward deck in 
the rain, waiting for the boat to sail, 
grimy and dripping stevedores were 
dropping trunks, bales of hay, and bar- 
rels into the hold. Our mangled duffel- 
bags followed. To add to the joyous- 
ness, thirty head of cattle stamped and 
bellowed on the deck below us, steam- 
ing and shivering in the storm. 
The boat cast off her hawsers and 
steamed away at midnight—three hours 
late. The sea growing rough, I sought 
the protection of my cabin, and then 
the seclusion of my bunk. In the early 
hours of the morning I was (I will not 
say awakened, for sleep was not to be 
had with thirty steers trampling about 
on the steel deck above, sounding like 
the crash of falling pins in a gigantic 
bowling alley), let us say, possessed 
with a craving for air. 
HIS was to be expected because the 
one porthole our stateroom boasted 
was battened down to keep out the 
heavy seas, which turned the room and 
‘The mach of he Huamtee 
Newfoundland Outing 


By JOSEPH M. WINTERSTEEN 
its occupants a sickly green each time 
the vessel rolled. Grabbing one of my 
fellow sufferers by the arm, I persuaded 
him to accompany me to the upper deck. 
Upon stepping out of the doorway of 
the saloon, a mountainous sea literally 
swept us headlong down the companion- 
way. Scrambling and falling down the 
stairs, we lost no time in resuming a 
rigid position on our backs again. 
Day dawned on a grey, angry sea, 
running mountain high, and with a 
cross chop. <A thick fog scurried be- 
fore the gale close to the water. I was 
fervently praying we might strike an 
island or an iceberg, when we steamed 
into the harbor of Port-aux-Basques. 
It was here I got my first impression 
of Newfoundland. I had heard of its 
bleak, rock-bound coast, but never have 
I cast eyes on such a dismal scene as 
confronted me when I came on deck 
and peered into the fog. 
FEW flat-roofed houses clung as if 
for dear life to the precipitous sides 
of the rocky cliffs. A soggy, greasy 
wharf rose up out of the gloom, with 
about twenty seamen, grizzled of beard 
and oilskin clad, moving languidly 
about on it, waiting for the ship to 
come to rest. The customs office and 
a Reid-Newfoundland locomotive ap- 
peared dimly through the fog and 
smoke. All else was blotted out. The 
engine proved to be the one that was to 
convey our diminutive train into the 
Here Is an 
Almost 
Untouched 
Country 
with Splendid 
Sporting 
Possibilities 
interior of Newfoundland, more exactly 
to Curling, a hundred miles or so in- 
land, our destination. 
A REID-NEWFOUNDLAND train is. 
in itself one of the curiosities of 
the island. The coaches are about half 
the size of ordinary cars; two pas- 
sengers cannot sit comfortably in one 
seat, and none of the berths in the 
sleeping cars is over five and a half feet 
in length. The trainmen consider late- 
ness of three hours a good run. Dur- 
ing the ride into the interior, the con- 
ductor amused us with stories of how 
often trains became derailed and how 
many hours late they generally were. 
On we went for the best part of the 
day, careening and jolting through the 
vast caribou barrens that stretch for 
miles across the country, through 
heavily timbered regions, over dizzy 
bridge spans and through narrow de- 
files of precipitous cliffs. Somehow es- 
caping the yawning gulfs below, we at 
last, after many hours, stepped off the 
platform at Curling. 
The following morning, when pro- 
visions and equipment were in readi- 
ness, we put off from the Humber dock 
in three river-boats, loaded to the gun- 
wales with duffel, tents, and cooking 
utensils, for a six weeks’ trip up the 
Humber River—‘“a noble river and full 
of fish,” as the travel bureau circulars 
so admirably describe it. 
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