The World of Waters, Or, A Peaceful Progress O'er the Unpathed SeaOsborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)
General
The World of Waters, Or, A Peaceful Progress O'er the Unpathed Sea
Osborne, David, Mrs. (Fanny)
Geography -- Juvenile literature; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile literature
CHARLES. "Newfoundland is famous for dogs; but I find the most
numerous there are not like those we call Newfoundland dogs, which
are large handsome animals, for _they_ are comparatively rare. The
most abundant are creatures with lank bodies, thin legs and tail,
and a thin tapering snout. They are very intelligent though, and
would beat the Chinese birds in catching fish; for Mr. Jukes, a
gentleman who has been to Newfoundland, says of one of these
dogs:--'He sat on a projecting rock beneath a fish-flake, or stage,
where the fish are laid to dry, watching the water, which had a
depth of six or eight feet, and the bottom of which was white with
fish-bones. On throwing a piece of cod-fish into the water, three or
four heavy, clumsy-looking fish, called in Newfoundland "sculpins,"
with great heads and mouths, and many spines about them, generally
about a foot long, would swim in to catch it. These he would watch
attentively, and the moment one turned his broadside to him, he
darted down like a fish-hawk, and seldom came up without the fish in
his mouth. As he caught them, he carried them regularly to a place a
few yards off, where he laid them down; and his owner told us that
in the summer he would sometimes make a pile of fifty or sixty a
day, just at that place. He never attempted to eat them, but seemed
to be fishing purely for his own amusement. I watched him for about
two hours; and when the fish did not come, I observed he once or
twice put his right foot in the water, and paddled it about. This
foot was white, and my friend said he did it to "toll" or entice the
fish.' Cunning dog was he not, George?"
GEORGE. "Yes; he would make his master's fortune if the fish he
caught were worth selling."
EMMA. "To get into Baffin's Bay, we must go through Davis's Straits,
so called from their discoverer, John Davis, who sailed through them
in 1585; and following the coast on the north side, we shall pass
South-east Bay and Coburg Bay. In 1818 Captain Ross completed the
circumnavigation of this oblong bay. The middle of it seems
everywhere occupied with impenetrable ice, between which and the
land is the only passage for ships."
MRS. WILTON. "That portion of the bay you have just described washes
the shores of Greenland and the Arctic Regions. Greenland is
considered as a peninsula attached to America, wretchedly barren,
for no trees grow there. But God, who made man of the dust, also
promised to supply his wants, and most wonderfully is this
exemplified with regard to Greenland. To provide the inhabitants
with the means of warming and nourishing their bodies, God causes
the sea to drive vast quantities of wood from distant shores, and
with thankfulness the poor Greenlanders regularly gather these
providential supplies from their own coasts. Some parts of Greenland
are nothing more than huge masses of rocks, intermingled with
immense blocks of ice, thus forming at once the image of chaos and
winter."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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