The Story of the Atlantic TelegraphField, Henry M. (Henry Martyn)
History
The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph
Field, Henry M. (Henry Martyn)
Transatlantic cables
Sailing west from Cape Race, and making the circuit of the island as far
as the Straits of Belle Isle, one is often reminded of the most northern
peninsula of Europe. The rocky shores are indented with numerous bays,
reaching far up into the land, like the fiords along the coast of
Norway; while the large herds of Caribou deer, that are seen feeding on
the hills, might easily be mistaken for the flocks of reindeer that
browse on the pastures and drink of the mountain torrents of ancient
Scandinavia.
The interior of the island is little known. Not only is it uninhabited,
it is almost unexplored, a boundless waste of rock and moor, where vast
forests stretch out their unbroken solitudes, and the wild bird utters
its lonely cry. Bears and wolves roam on the mountains. Especially
common is the large and fierce black wolf; while of the smaller animals,
whose skins furnish material for the fur-trade, such as martins and
foxes, there is the greatest abundance. But from all pests of the
serpent tribe, Newfoundland is as free as Ireland, which was delivered
by the prayers of St. Patrick. There is not a snake or a frog or a toad
in the island!
Yet, even in this ruggedness of nature, there is a wild beauty, which
only needs to be "clothed upon" by the hand of man. Newfoundland, in
many of its features, is not unlike Scotland, even in its most desolate
portions, where the rocky surface of the country, covered with thick
moss, reminds the emigrant Scot of the heather on his native moors. In
the interior are lakes as long as Loch Lomond, and mountains as lofty as
Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis. There are passes as wild as the Vale of
Glencoe, where one might feel that he is in the heart of the Highlands,
while the roar of the torrents yet more vividly recalls the
Land of the brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood.
Yet in all this there is nothing to repel human habitation. By the hand
of industry, these wild moors might be transformed into fruitful fields.
We think it a very cold country, where winter reigns over half the year,
as in Greenland; yet it is not so far north as Scotland, nor is its
climate more inhospitable. It only needs the same population, the same
hardy toil: and the same verdure would creep up its hill-sides, which
now makes green and beautiful the loneliest of Scottish glens.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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