After dinner we set off for Signal Hill, the grand observatory of the country, both by nature and art. Before we were half-way up, we found that June was June, even in Newfoundland. But there is something in a mountain ramble that pays for all warmth and fatigue. Little rills rattled by, paths wound among rocky notches and grassy chasms, and led out to dizzy “over-looks” and “short-offs.” The town with its thousand smokes sat in a kind of amphitheatre, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle of sails and colors in the harbor. Below us were the fishing-flakes, a kind of thousand-legged shelves, made of poles, and covered with spruce boughs, for drying fish, the local term for cod, and placed like terraces or large steps one above another on the rocky slopes. We struck into a fine military road, and passed spacious stone barracks, soldiers and soldiers’ families, goats and little gardens.
From the observatory, situated on the craggy pinnacle, both the rugged interior and the expanse of ocean were before us. Far off at sea a cloud of canvas was shining in the afternoon sun, a kind of golden white, while down the northern coast, distant several miles, was an iceberg. It was glittering in the sunshine like a mighty crystal. The work and play of to-morrow were resolved upon immediately, and we descended at our leisure, plucking the wild flowers among the moss and herbage, and gazing quietly at the hues and features of the extended prospect.
CHAPTER X.
THE RIDE TO TORBAY.—THE LOST SAILOR.—THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.
Thursday, June 23. We were stirring betimes, making preparations for our first venture after an iceberg. Unluckily, it was a Romish holiday, and every vehicle in town seemed to be busy carrying people about, by the time we thought it necessary to engage one for ourselves. We succeeded at length in securing a hard-riding wagon, driven by a young Englishman, and were soon on our way, trundling along at a good pace over the smooth road leading from St. Johns to Torbay, the nearest water to our berg, and distant some eight or nine miles. The morning was fine, the sunshine cheering, the air cool and bracing, and all went promisingly. The adjacent country is an elevated kind of barren, clothed with brushwood, spruce and birch, crossed by numerous little trout brooks, and spotted with ponds and wet meadows, with here and there a lonely-looking hut. But there were the songs of birds, the tinkling of cow-bells, and the odor of evergreens and flowers. A characteristic of the coast is its elevation above the country lying behind. Instead of descending, the lands rise, as you approach the ocean, into craggy domes, walls and towers, breaking off precipitously, and affording from the eminences of our road prospects of sparkling sea. Our hearts were full of music, and our minds and conversation were a kind of reflection of the solitary scene. For months, our young man tells us, the snow lies so deeply along this fine road as to render it impassable for sleighs, except when sufficiently hard to bear a horse. The snow-shoe is then in general use. One of the pests of early summer is the black fly, as we have already experienced. A few years ago, a sailor ran away from his vessel, at St. Johns, and took to these bushy wilds, in which, at length, he got lost, and finally perished from the bites of this pestilent fly. He was found accidentally, and in a state of insensibility, being covered with them, and so nearly devoured that he died within a few hours after his discovery.
Speaking of the Newfoundland dog, he told us that one of pure, original blood, was scarcely to be found. I had supposed, and had good reason for it, from what I had read in the papers, about the time of the visit to St. Johns, upon the laying of the Atlantic Cable, that any person could for a small sum purchase numbers of the finest dogs. I think a certain correspondent of some New York daily, told us that several gentlemen supplied themselves with these animals upon their departure. If such was the case, then they took away with them about the last of the real breed, and must have paid for them such prices as they would not like to own. Scarcely a splendid dog is now to be seen, and five, ten, and even twenty pounds sterling might be refused for him. We have not seen the first animal that compares with those which trot up and down Broadway nearly every week; and they are not the pure-blooded creature, either, by a good deal. It is to be regretted, that dogs of such strength, beauty and sagacity should have been permitted to become almost extinct in their native country.
CHAPTER XI.
TORBAY.—FLAKES AND FISH-HOUSES.—THE FISHING BARGE.—THE CLIFFS.—THE RETREAT TO FLAT ROCK HARBOR.—WILLIAM WATERMAN, THE FISHERMAN.
Torbay, finely described in a recent novel by the Rev. R. T. S. Lowell, is an arm of the sea, a short, strong arm with a slim hand and finger, reaching into the rocky land, and touching the waterfalls and rapids of a pretty brook. Here is a little village, with Romish and Protestant steeples, and the dwellings of fishermen, with the universal appendages of fishing-houses, boats and flakes. One seldom looks upon a hamlet so picturesque and wild. The rocks slope steeply down to the wonderfully clear water. Thousands of poles support half-acres of the spruce-bough shelf, beneath which is a dark, cool region, crossed with footpaths, and not unfrequently sprinkled and washed by the surf,—a most kindly office on the part of the sea, you will allow, when once you have scented the fish-offal perpetually dropping from the evergreen fish-house above. These little buildings on the flakes are conspicuous features, and look as fresh and wild as if they had just wandered away from the woodlands.
There they stand, on the edge of the lofty pole-shelf, or upon the extreme end of that part of it which runs off frequently over the water like a wharf, an assemblage of huts and halls, bowers and arbors, a curious huddle made of poles and sweet-smelling branches and sheets of birch-bark. A kind of evening haunts these rooms of spruce, at noonday, while at night a hanging lamp, like those we see in old pictures of crypts and dungeons, is to the stranger only a kind of buoy by which he is to steer his way through the darkness. To come off then without pitching headlong, and soiling your hands and coat, is the merest chance. Strange! one is continually allured into these piscatory bowers whenever he comes near them. In spite of the chilly, salt air, and the repulsive smells about the tables where they dress the fish, I have a fancy for these queer structures. Their front door opens upon the sea, and their steps are a mammoth ladder, leading down to the swells and the boats. There is a charm also about fine fishes, fresh from the net and the hook,—the salmon, for example, whose pink and yellow flesh has given a name to one of the most delicate hues of Art or Nature.