The Saint Paul globe., 1899-12-10

run for shelter and lie to-" This man has
had seventeen years experience on New
foundland and Labrador coasts without
a single accident and he may be consid-
cred authority on northern routes. AS
for the captains of fishing schooners, men
who have spent all their lives cruising the
straits, they scoff at mention of using
Belle Isle for mercantile purposes.
LEDGES LIE IN WAIT.
Besides the danger from fog and tide
at the entrance to the Gulf of St Law
renee. there is peril of long, sharp ledges
that furrow ali parts of the northern
coast, and are only visible by the fretted
line surface spray. No lighthouses
mark these hidden reefs, and many q
schooner comes to grief upon them dur
ing the night or In a fog. The old
rooms" or fishing harbors, of French
and Jersey fishermen have long been
deserted in the neighborhood of the
straits. Occasionally a dismantled hut
or a dilapidated chapel may be seen
clinging TO the base of the rock wall,
but all is lifeless and desolation. There
are not dozen settlements on either
side of the narrow channel, and these are
hidden away securely behind rock-guard-
ed harbors. no sign of life Is visible TO
passing steamers. No aid to navigation
exists on these bleak northern shores
False Cape runs out from Newfoundland
in great Jagged, towering rocks, torn by
the driving tide, and White island lies on
the shore bare and lonely as tomb
stone. Afar, from other rocky, islands,
comes the dull booming of the surf, which
Indian legend of Labrador describes as
the shrieking of demons over their prey.
Roofiess huts used as wtnd-breaks oy
the sealers in the spring add to the in
describable loneliness Of the tenantless
6cha m
comes bounding over the waves, its sud
den disappearance behind some rocky
eminence only accentuates the utter
dreariness of the whole region
OF the countless fishing schooners lost
in the North Atlantic the world hears
nothing, They do not carry insurance
policies, though all carry crews number
ing from eight to twelve men; ana Wnen
the boat goes down, ordinarily the crew
goes with it. Last year in a single gale
twelve schooners were overturned Or
foundered and all hands lost, OF the
Labrador coast. The same storm INVADED
the rock-girt harbors and, catching
schooners that had run for shelter and
inoored within, hurled them up like
house lifted by a cyclone and pounded
them into kindling wood against the
rocks This gale also proved the value OF
the northern fisherman's instincts. The
government mail steamer Virginia Lake
was healing for the straits, where the
usual brown fog line was visible against
the horizon. Porpoises came ficundering
to the surface Of the water, displaying all
sorts Of schoolboy antics. racing the snip,
and in the most impudently human way
imaginable began turning sorlersaults
directly across the ships PROV.
II never see porps do that except agen
a Storm said the mate, an old salt of
forty years seasoning; but ''porps" were
rot in the captains chart, and he laughed
at the mates prophecy. Twelve hours
later the fulhlment of the ominous "porp'
prophecy was. driving the Virginia Lake
with reckless haste to Red Bay, Labra-
dor, where, in the shelter of high rocks,
in spite Of full steam against the wind
and with two anchors out, she drifted a
mile from her moorings.