e Tuesday morning 9 o.clock August 11.
Mingnon Island Labrador.
I make up my log to day in the act of preparing to go ashore and for the
first time set my foot on the land of Labrador – We are in port. What do
you think the port looks like. First, to Shipping. There are two schooners
anchored in the Harbor, engaged in cod and mackerel fishing. There is a
Home and a store occupied by Donald Henderson Esquire agent of the
Hudson Bay Company. The beach stretches away interminably on both
sides and is beautifully shaded by a forest of spruce and larch
tall and straight and densely crowded. Between the rocky ledge
and the waters edge we note the country seats of two Esquimaux gentle-
men which were indicated to us by the pilot as Esquime Houses ac-
cording to French pronunciation but which we find on applying the spy
glass to be Indian wigwams – At five this morning the forest on the
shore was whitened with herons leaving their roosts and cawing and
clamourous so as to be heard for miles. Ducks are sailing around us with
the utmost nonchalance, porpoises are taking air baths and last night
after we had wearied ourselves with drawing codfish up from
their recesses, and the sun had just set, a young whale calf about
as large as an elephant appeared just off the after quarter deck and
went around to the bows near enough to be taken with a noose. It was late
in the night for the whale family and we doubted whether his mother knew
that he was out. It is a drizzling morning with a North Easterly wind,
but we are cased in pea jackets and have come to be indifferent to the
weather –