Whilst crossing the banks the ship was frequently hove to for soundings. We took advantage of such occasions to fish for cod; nor were we unsuccessful, for we, altogether, hauled on board several dozen fish of a large size. The delight with which we feasted upon our prey, after some weeks’ experience of nothing but salt meat, I leave the reader to imagine. It was during one of our angling attempts that an incident occurred, which would have seemed as incredible to me as it may now do the reader, had I not been an eye-witness of it. One of the crew, whilst fishing for a few minutes, with a line belonging to a passenger, hooked a very large fish, which dropped into the water in the act of being hauled on board. The man, determined on securing his prize, without a moment’s hesitation, leaped overboard after it; and, seizing the half insensible fish in his arms, held it there until he was hauled on board, with his extraordinary booty. In explanation of this, it should be known that the gills of a cod-fish, when out of the water, swell considerably, so as to prevent it from properly performing their functions when restored, even alive, to its native element. It was whilst the fish in question was in the act of thus “coming to” that the man seized and secured it. On the banks, when the night was clear, we witnessed magnificent exhibitions of the aurora-borealis. It was generally between midnight and ten in the morning that the phenomenon attained the greatest splendour. When the whole northern sky was enveloped in a trellis-work of flashing wavy light, of a mingled golden, silvery pink, and blood-red hue. The first land we made, was Cape Breton, an island off the northern extremity of Nova Scotia; and between which and Newfoundland, is the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The bold shore of the island was more picturesque than inviting; but for the live-long day every passenger strained his eyes upon this, the first positive revelation of the New World to him. The delight imparted by the first sight of land, can only be appreciated by those who have been for weeks at sea, with nothing to meet the eye, day after day, but the same monotonous and dreary circle of waters, in the midst of which the ship seems to rest immoveable. From Cape Breton we stood up the Gulf, and being favoured by the wind, soon made the Island of Anticosti, not far from the mouth of the St. Lawrence. It looked like a mass of petrified guano; an illusion which was not disturbed by the myriads of water-fowl which hovered about its precipices.