All went well the first night, or at least my fellow passengers showed no signs of there being anything unusual, so like Brer Rabbit, I lay low and said nothing. At noon the following day a slightly bigger and more prolonged jolt caused the curious among us to look from the window. The engine, tender, and luggage van were derailed. As the speed of the trains never exceeds twenty-five miles an hour, such little contretemps which occur from time to time do not ruffle the serenity of those concerned. Resigning myself to a delay of a few hours, I determined to alight and explore the country. But alas! I had no mosquito veiling, and to stand for a moment outside without this protection was to risk disfigurement for life. So I humbly yielded to adverse circumstances and returned to try and read, the previous bumping having made this out of the question. But the interior was by this time a veritable Gehenna, and no ventilation could be obtained, as the Company had not thought it necessary to provide their windows with screens. For twenty-five hours we remained in durance vile, until at last the relief train lumbered to our rescue and conveyed us to Run-by-Guess, our destination.
Northward Bound. On board
June 25
If you could have been present during the return journey from Run-by-Guess your worst prophecies would have seemed to you justified. The railroad is of the genus known as narrow-gauge; the roadbed was not constructed on the principles laid down by the Romans. In a country where the bones of Mother Earth protrude so insistently, it is beating the devil round the stump to mend the bed with fir branches tucked even ever so solicitously under the ties. That, nevertheless, was an attempt at "safety first" which I saw.
Towards morning a furious rain and wind storm broke over us. Before many minutes I noticed that my berth was becoming both cold and damp. Looking up I made out in the dim dawn a small but persistent stream pouring down upon me. I had had the upper berth pushed up so as to get the air! Again the train came to an unscheduled stop. By this time assorted heads were emerging from behind the curtains, and from each came forcible protests against the weather. There was nothing to be done but to sit with my feet tucked up and my arms around my knees, occupying thus the smallest possible space for one of my proportions, and wait developments. Ten minutes later, after much shouting outside my window, a ladder was planted against the car, and two trainmen in yellow oilskins climbed to the roof. I noted with satisfaction that they carried hammers, tacks, and strips of tin. A series of resounding blows and the almost immediate cessation of the descending floods told how effective their methods had proved. Directly afterwards the startled squeak of the engine whistle, as if some one had trodden on its toe, warned us that we were off once more.
We landed (you will note that the nautical phraseology of the country has already gripped me) in the same storm at Come-by-Chance Junction. But the next morning broke bright and shining, as if rain and wind were inhabitants of another planet. It is quite obvious that this land is a lineal descendant of Albion's Isle. Now I am aboard the coastal steamer and we are nosing our way gingerly through the packed floe ice, as we steam slowly north for Cape St. John. Yes, I know it is Midsummer's Day, but as the captain tersely put it, "the slob is a bit late."
The storm of two days ago blowing in from the broad Atlantic drove the great field of leftover pans before it, and packed them tight against the cliffs. If we had not had that sudden change in the weather's mind yesterday, we should not be even as far along as we now find ourselves.
You can form no idea of one's sensations as the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam. For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks. Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between, and sometimes they are so tightly massed together that they look like a hummocky white field. How any one can get a steamer along through it is a never-ending source of amazement, and my admiration for the captain is unstinted. I stand on the bridge by the hour, and watch him and listen to the reports of the man on the cross-trees as to the prospects of "leads" of open water ahead. Every few minutes we back astern, and then butt the ice. If one stays below decks the noise of the grinding on the ship's side is so persistent and so menacing that I prefer the deck in spite of its barrels and crates and boxes and smells. Here at least one would not feel like a rat in a hole if a long, gleaming, icy, giant finger should rip the ship's side open down the length of her. As we grate and scrape painfully along I look back and see that the ice-pan channel we leave behind is lined with scarlet. It is the paint off our hull. The spectacle is all too suggestive for one who has always regarded the most attractive aspect of the sea to be viewed from the landwash.
Of course the scenery is beautiful—almost too trite to write—but the beauty is lonesome and terrifying, and my city-bred soul longs for some good, homely, human "blot on the landscape." There are no trees on the cliffs now. I understand, however, that Nature is not responsible for this oversight. The people are sorely in need of firewood, and not being far-seeing enough to realize what a menace it is to the country to denude it so unscientifically, they have razed every treelet. Nature has done her best to rectify their mistake, and the rocky hills are covered with jolly bright mosses and lichens.
Naturally, there are compensations for even this kind of voyage, for no swell can make itself felt through the heavy ice pack. We steam along for miles on a keel so even that only the throb of our engines, and the inevitable "ship-py" odour, remind one that the North Atlantic rolls beneath the staunch little steamer.
The "staunch little steamer's" whistle has just made a noise out of all proportion to its size. It reminded me of an English sparrow's blatant personality. We have turned into a "tickle," and around the bend ahead of us are a handful of tiny whitewashed cottages clinging to the sides of the rocky shore.