After Icebergs with a Painter / A Summer Voyage to Labrador and Around Newfoundland.

by Louis Legrand Noble

CHAPTER XIV.

PETTY HARBOR.—THE MOUNTAIN RIVER.—COD-LIVER OIL.—THE EVENING RIDE BACK TO St. JOHNS.

To venture a geological remark: All these coast highlands correspond with the summits of the Alleghenies, and with those regions of the Cordilleras, C⁠—— tells me, which are just below the snow-line. From the sea-line up to the peak, they correspond with our mountains above the upper belt of woods. Their icy pinnacles and eternal snows are floating below in the form of icebergs. Imagine all the mid-mountain region in the deep, and you have the Andes here.

We descended in a zigzag way into a deep gorge, one of those cuts through the shore mountains from inland regions to the sea, which occasionally become fiords or narrow bays. Along the rocky steps, resembling galleries, were patches of grass and beds of flowering mosses, with springs bubbling up in the spongy turf, and spinning themselves out into snowy threads from the points and edges of the crags. At the bottom is the little village of Petty Harbor, where the river, a roaring torrent, meets the salt tide. We alighted at a cottage, Swiss-like among the rocks, before we were quite down, and were pleased to hear Mr. Shea, whose guests we were, making arrangements with a nice-looking woman for an abundant supper, on our return. Mr. S., in company with several persons who now joined us from St. Johns, then proceeded to show us the lions of the place, or lion rather, for every thing and everybody are run up into, and knit into one body, the fishery.

In the first place, we were struck with the general appearance of things. The fishing flakes completely floor the river, and ascend in terraces for a short distance up the sides of the vale. Beneath these wide, evergreen floors, upon which was fish in all states, fresh from the knife, and dry enough for packing, ran the river, a brawling stream at low tide, and deeper, silent water when the tide was in. We could look up the dark stream, and see it dancing in the mountain sunshine, and down through the dim forest of slender props, and catch glances of the glittering sea. Boats were gliding up out of the daylight into the half-darkness, slowly sculled by brown fishermen, and freighted with the browner cod, laced occasionally with a salmon. In this wide and noiseless shade, these cool, Lethean realms, sitting upon some well-washed boulder, one might easily forget the heat and uproar of all cities, and become absorbed in the contemplation of merely present and momentary things. If one doubts it, let him immerse himself for half an hour, in those still and gloomy shadows, strongly seasoned with “ancient and fish-like smells.” Should he be able to reflect upon the absent, or engage his thoughts upon any thing except that which most immediately affects his senses, he will possess a power of abstraction which a philosopher and a Brahmin might envy.

In the course of our walk we visited a cod-liver oil manufactory. The process of making this article is quite simple. The livers, fresh from the fish, and nearly white, are cleanly washed, and thrown into a cauldron heated by steam instead of fire, where they gradually dissolve into oil, which is dipped out hot and strained, first through conical felt bags, and then through those made of white moleskin, from which it runs pure and sweet as table-oil. Wine-glasses were at hand, from which we tasted it, and found it entirely agreeable. In this state it is barrelled for market, and sold at an average price of one dollar and fifty cents per gallon. By what process it is transmuted into that horrid stuff which is sold at a high price, in small bottles, perhaps the druggist can inform us. When I mentioned the character of cod-liver oil in New York, a gentleman present, qualified to decide, did not hesitate to say that it was adulterated with some cheap, base oil. Near by a fish-house, there is ordinarily seen a row of hogsheads open to the sun, and breathing smells that none but a fisherman can abide. A near approach discovers these casks to be filled with cod livers in a state of fermentation. After a few days in the sun, these corpulent and sweaty vessels yield a rancid, nauseous fluid, of a nut-brown hue, at a much less cost than the refined oil of the manufactory, and which, I imagine, must have a flavor not unlike that which the invalid finds lurking in those genteel flasks on the apothecary’s shelves. After all, our common whale-oil, I suspect, after some cleansing and bleaching, and slight seasoning with the pure, is bad enough for sick people.

The catch, as the fisher terms the number of fish taken, was small that day, and we encountered, here and there, knots of idle men, smoking, chewing, whittling and talking. For the most part, they were a russet, tangle-haired and shaggy-bearded set, shy and grum at first, but presently talkative enough, and intelligent upon all matters in their own little world. Fish were so glutted with capelin that they would not bite well. The seines did better. Among the dwellings that we passed or entered, was one of a young English woman, of such exceeding neatness, that the painter could not forget it. That fine-looking, healthy, young English woman, with her bit of a house just as neat as wax, was often spoken of.

Upon our return to the cottage on the hill-side, where we at first alighted, we sat down, with sharp appetite, to a supper of fried capelin and cods’ tongues, garnished with cups of excellent tea. We ate and drank with the relish of travellers, and talked of the continent from Greenland to Cape Horn. After supper, we climbed out of the valley, in advance of the wagons and our company, to an eminence from which C⁠—— sketched the surrounding scenery, more for the sake of comparison with some of his Andean pencillings than for any thing really new. He remarked that the wild and rocky prospect bore a strong resemblance to the high regions of the Cordilleras.

While he was engaged with the pencil, I scrambled to a high place, and looked at the Atlantic, touched with long shafts of the light and shade of sunset. All arrived at length, and we were fairly on our way back to St. Johns. I buttoned my coat tightly, and wound my cloak around me with a pleasing sense of comfort in the clear and almost wintry air. All talked somewhat loudly, and in the best possible good humor, our three wagons keeping close company, and making a pleasant sound of wheels, as we ran down our serpentine way among the hills and lakes, now darkening in the dusk, and reflecting the colored skies. Although there was not a water-fowl in sight, the words came to memory spontaneously, and I recited them to myself:

“Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?”

As we approached the town, we were much amused with some boyish sports of a new kind. We saw what appeared through the darkness to be balls of fire, chasing each other down the craggy hill-side, but which turned out to be a company of frolicsome boys with lighted torches, bounding down the zigzag mountain road.