DRIFTING IN THE STRAITS.—RETREAT TO TEMPLE BAY.—PICTURESQUE
SCENERY.—VOYAGERS’ SATURDAY NIGHT.
WE are drifting to the north shore in spite of all that can be done, and
positively have not been before in so great danger. Our anchor, with all
the cable we have, would be swinging above the bottom, were we close to
the rocks. A reckless skipper, not long ago in a similar predicament,
let go his anchor with the expectation that it would catch in time to
save him, but he went bows on, and lost his vessel. Our hope is that
some one of the flaws of wind, now ruffling the water every little while
in various directions, will catch our sails, and allow us to escape into
Temple Bay, a land-locked harbor close by. My anxiety to return home
makes this delay a little vexatious, and galls my thin-skinned patience.
We had every reason to hope, this morning, that we should be through
these perilous narrows and upon the broad gulf by midnight.
The breeze touches us at the last moment, and we are gliding through the
narrow pass between high craggy banks, over a comparatively shallow
bottom, visible from the deck, into what appears to be a lake surrounded
by mountains not unlike those about West Point, barring their fine
woods. Really Labrador can show us, at last, a little forest greenery.
Without a point of grandeur, this is the most picturesque scenery we
have found on the coast. The greenish waters, tinted by the verdure
reflected from their surface, expand to the breadth of a mile by six or
seven in length, with a depth of fifty fathoms or more. We glide past
the village—a knot of fish-houses, flakes and dwellings, in the bight
to the left or south, and drop anchor within pistol-shot of the spruces
and a mountain brook. Here we are, till next week, like a lonely fly on
this mirror of the mountains, and must make the most of our shadows and
reflections, sunshine and solitude, and see what they will bring us.
I sit upon deck and look about upon the wild, noiseless scene, and say:
What a lonely Saturday afternoon! The weary week is just lying down to
ruminate in these solemn shades. A few scattering sounds, the finishing
strokes of the axe and hammer, and the low wail of the surf beyond the
coast-ridge break the rest of the cool, bracing air. The upper end of
the lake, as I call the bay or fiord, is hidden behind a headland,
reminding me of our Hudson Butter Hill. Nothing would be pleasanter than
a small voyage of discovery by twilight. Below the stern of the
schooner, which swings near the beach, are the timbers of a ship peeping
above water, and full of story, no doubt, as so many old salts. We have
had a most agreeable tea-time, the Captain entertaining us with
incidents of his life upon these northern seas. My regret, not to say
vexation, that we had to leave the strait and retreat to the safety of
this lovely fold, provided by the Good Shepherd of the deep, is quite
dissipated after a little sketch of the perils to which we should have
been subjected among the currents, becalmed and immersed in fog, banks
of which I see already peeping over the hills along the shore. Sunset
and twilight and the dusk of evening have come and gone. The stars are
out in multitudes, Arcturus among them high in the great arch, and the
depths, above which we seem to hang suspended, are thickly sown with
their trembling images.