THE CAPE AND BAY OF ST. LOUIS.—THE ICEBERG.—CARIBOO
ISLAND.—BATTLE HARBOR AND ISLAND.—THE ANCHORAGE.—THE
MISSIONARIES.
FIVE o’clock, P. M. What a pleasing contrast! We have been tossing
nearly all day upon a rough, inclement ocean, and are now on the sunny,
smooth waters of the bay, gliding westward, with Cape St. Louis close
upon our right. We have sailed from winter into summer, almost as
suddenly as we come out of the fog, at times—bursting out of it into
the clear air, as an eagle breaks out of a cloud. It is fairly a luxury
to bask in this delicious sunshine, and smell the mingled perfume of
flowers and the musky spruce. Mr. Hutchinson is filled with delight to
find himself once more on this beautiful bay. The rocky hill-country
along the western shores, nine or ten miles distant, is not the
mainland, he tells us, but islands, separated from the mainland, and
from each other, by narrow waters, occasionally expanding into lakes of
great depth, and extending more than forty miles from the sea. Were
these savage hills and cliffs beautified with verdure, and sprinkled
with villages and dwellings, this would class among the finest bays of
the world. Across it to the south, some seven miles, and partly out to
sea, lies a cluster of picturesque islands, where is Battle Harbor, the
home of the missionaries, and the principal port on the lengthy coast of
Labrador.
A fine iceberg, of the fashion of a sea-shell, broken open to the
afternoon sun, and unfolding great beauty, lies in the middle of the
bay. We are sailing past it, on our passage to the harbor, just near
enough for a good view. It gleams in the warm sun like highly-burnished
steel, changing, as we pass it, into many complexions—changeable silks
and the rarest china. The superlatives are the words that one
involuntarily calls to his aid in the presence of an iceberg. From this
bright creation floating in the purple water, I look up to the bright
clouds floating in the blue air, and easily discover likenesses in their
features, ways and colors.
The coast of Labrador is the edge of a vast solitude of rocky hills,
split and blasted by the frosts, and beaten by the waves of the
Atlantic, for unknown ages. Every form into which rocks can be washed
and broken, is visible along its almost interminable shores. A grand
headland, yellow, brown and black, in its horrid nakedness, is ever in
sight, one to the north of you, one to the south. Here and there upon
them are stripes and patches of pale green—mosses, lean grasses, and
dwarf shrubbery. Occasionally, miles of precipice front the sea, in
which the fancy may roughly shape all the structures of human art,
castles, palaces and temples. Imagine an entire side of Broadway piled
up solidly, one, two, three hundred feet in height, often more, and
exposed to the charge of the great Atlantic rollers, rushing into the
churches, halls, and spacious buildings, thundering through the
doorways, dashing in at the windows, sweeping up the lofty fronts,
twisting the very cornices with snowy spray, falling back in bright
green scrolls and cascades of silvery foam. And yet, all this imagined,
can never reach the sentiment of these precipices.
More frequent, though, than headlands and perpendicular sea-fronts are
the sea-slopes, often bald, tame, and wearisome to the eye, now and then
the perfection of all that is picturesque and rough, a precipice gone to
pieces, its softer portions dissolved down to its roots, its flinty
bones left standing, a savage scene that scares away all thoughts of
order and design in nature. If I am not mistaken, there are times when a
slope of the kind, a mile or more in length, and in places some hundreds
of feet in breadth from the tide up to the highest line of washing, is
one of the most terribly beautiful of ocean sights. In an easterly gale,
the billows roll up out of the level of the ocean, and wreck themselves
upon these crags, rushing back through gulfs and chasms in a way at once
awfully brilliant and terrific.
This is the rosy time of Labrador. The blue interior hills, and the
stony vales that wind up among them from the sea, have a summer-like and
pleasant air. I find myself peopling these regions, and dotting their
hills, valleys, and wild shores with human habitations. A second
thought, and a mournful one it is, tells me that no men toil in the
fields away there; no women keep the house off there; there no children
play by the brooks, or shout around the country school-house; no bees
come home to the hive; no smoke curls from the farm-house chimney; no
orchard blooms; no bleating sheep fleck the mountain-sides with
whiteness; and no heifer lows in the twilight. There is nobody there;
there never was but a miserable and scattered few, and there never will
be. It is a great and terrible wilderness of a thousand miles, and
lonesome to the very wild animals and birds. Left to the still
visitations of the light from the sun, moon, and stars, and the auroral
fires, it is only fit to look upon, and then be given over to its
primeval solitariness. But for the living things of its waters, the cod,
the salmon and the seal, which bring thousands of adventurous fishermen
and traders to its bleak shores, Labrador would be as desolate as
Greenland.
We are now entering Battle Harbor, a most romantic nook of water, or
Strait rather, between the islands forming the south side of the bay St.
Louis. Cariboo Island fronts to the north on the bay, five or six miles,
I should guess, and is a rugged mountain-pile of dark gray rock, rounded
in its upper masses, and slashed along its shores with abrupt chasms. It
drops short off, at its eastern extremity, several hundred feet, into a
narrow gulf of deep water. This is Battle Harbor. The billowy pile of
igneous rock, perhaps two hundred and fifty feet high, lying between
this quiet water and the broad Atlantic, is Battle Island, and the site
of the town. We pass a couple of wild islets, lying seaward, as we glide
gently along toward our anchorage. There is little to be seen but hard,
iron-bound bay, and yet we are all out, gazing abroad with silent
curiosity, as if we were entering the Golden Horn. Up runs the Union
Jack, and flings its ancient crosses to the sun and breeze, and the
fishermen look down upon us from their rude dwellings perched among the
crags, and wonder who, and from whence we are. For the moment, nothing
seems to be going on but standing still and looking, men, women, and
children. And now they will look and wonder still more: up run the Stars
and Stripes, higher up than all, and overfloat the flag of England, and
salute the sun and cliffs of Labrador. The missionary waves his
handkerchief—waves his hat—calls pleasantly to a group upon the
nearest shore. They look, and hearken, in the stillness of uncertainty.
Instantly there is a movement of recognition. The people know it is
their pastor. The intelligence has caught, and runs from house to house.
Down drop the sails, rattling down the masts; the anchor plunges, and
the cable runs, runs rattling and ringing from its coil. Round the
vessel swings in line with the breeze, and comes to its repose. We
congratulate the missionary on his safe return, while he points us
feelingly to the little church and parsonage, just above us on the mossy
hill-side, and bids us welcome as long as we shall find it agreeable to
remain. With light and thankful hearts, and pleasant anticipations, we
prepare to go ashore, and take our first run upon the hills.