Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/390

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THE TOURIST'S MARITIME PROVINCES

may be taken for excursions on Conception, Trinity, Bonavista, Notre Dame and Green Bays, all of which deeply indent the easterly coast of rugged Terra Nova. The Reid-Newfoundland Company controls all the railways on the island, the total number of miles being 726, including main line and branches. Exclusive of the service to North Sydney, Cape Breton, and to Nain, Labrador, the total number of miles covered on the bay routes is 2350. The steamers are very small, but are clean, modern as to sanitation and lighted with electricity. The food is of good quality and the attendance exceptionally courteous and obliging. Those affected by sea-sickness may suffer some unhappy moments even during comparatively sheltered passages, because in making successive ports the little crafts frequently round promontories which are exposed to the open Atlantic. However, in the middle of summer the ocean itself is often as calm as a bay. Rough water may be avoided in such long indraughts as Placentia and Trinity Bays by leaving the steamer at some picturesque port and staying ashore until after the steamer has completed the more exposed portion of the trip, at most a matter of three or four days. Steamer fares including meals average $2.50 a day.

Newfoundland's first railway was laid about twenty-five years ago, its promoter, builder and operator being Sir Robert Reid whose three sons