Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/477

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THE LABRADOR JOURNAL
421

small Black-cap Green Flycatchers, Black-cap Warblers, old and young, the last fully grown, a Fringilla lincolnii, and a Pine Grosbeak. They saw many Gulls of various species, and also an iceberg of immense size. There is at Port Eau a large fishing establishment belonging to fishermen who come annually from the Island of Jersey, and have a large store with general supplies. Ere I go to rest let me tell thee that it is now blowing a young hurricane, and the prospect for to-morrow is a bad one. A few moments ago the report of a cannon came to our ears from the sea, and it is supposed that it was from the "Gulnare." I wish she was at our side and snugly moored as we are.

July 31. Another horrid hurricane, accompanied with heavy rain. I could not go on with my drawing either in the cabin or the hold, though everything was done that could be thought of, to assist me in the attempt; not a thing to relate, as not one of us could go on shore.

August 1. Bras d'Or, Coast of Labrador.[1] I have drawn my Lestris pomarinus, but under difficulties; the weather has quite changed; instead of a hurricane from the east, we have had one all day from the southwest, but no rain. At noon we were visited by an iceberg, which has been drifting within three miles of us, and is now grounded at the entrance of the bay; it looks like a large man-of-war dressed in light green muslin, instead of canvas, and when the sun strikes it, it glitters with intense brilliancy. When these transient monuments of the sea happen to tumble or roll over, the fall is tremendous, and the sound produced resembles that of loud, distant thunder; these icebergs are common here all summer, being wafted south with every gale that blows; as the winds are usually easterly, the coast of Newfoundland is more free from them than that of Labrador. I have determined to

  1. A small village on the coast of Labrador, latitude 51°; not the Bras D'Or of Cape Breton Island.