"Do I think so?--I know it. I feel it down to my butes. Eastport harbure? Yea! An arter that we hev all plain-sailin." "Why, won't the fog last?" "I don't car for the fog. Arter we get to Eastport harbure we cease goin down the bay. We then cross over an steal up the other side. Then it's all our own. If the fog lasts, why, the wind'll last too, an we can go up flyin, all sails set; an I'll remuve from my mind, for the time bein, any prejudyce that I have agin wind at sails." "Do you intend to go ashore at Eastport?" "Yes, for a short time--jest to make inquiries. It will be a consolation, you know." "Of course." "Then I'll up sail, an away we'll go, irrewspective of tides, across the bay." By midday the captain informed them that they were in Eastport harbor. "See thar," said he, as he pointed to a headland with a light-house. "That thar is the entrance. They do call this a pootyish place; but as it's this thick, you won't hev much chance to see it. Don't you want to go ashore an walk about?" "Not if we can help it. Of course we'll have to ask after poor Tom, but we haven't any curiosity." "Wal, p'aps not--ony thar is people that find this a dreadful cur'ous place. It's got, as I said, a pootyish harbure; but that ain't the grand attraction. The grand attraction centres in a rock that's said to be the eastest place in the neighborin republic,--in short, as they call it, the 'jumpin-off place.' You'd better go an see it; ony you needn't jump off, unless you like." Sailing up the harbor, the fog grew light enough for them to see the shore. The town lay in rather an imposing situation, on the side of a hill, which was crowned by a fort. A large number of vessels lay about at the wharves and at anchor. Here they went ashore in a boat, but on making inquiries could gain no information about Tom; nor could they learn anything which gave them the slightest encouragement. "We've got to wait here a while so as to devarsefy the time. Suppose we go an jump off?" said the captain. The boys assented to this in a melancholy manner, and the captain led the way through the town, till at last he halted at the extreme east end. "Here," said he, "you behold the last extremity of a great an mighty nation, that spreads from the Atlantic to the Pacific, an from the Gulf of Mexiky to the very identical spot that you air now a occypyin of. It air a celebrated spot, an this here air a memorable momient in your youthful lives, if you did but know it!" There was nothing very striking about this place, except the fact which Captain Corbet had stated. Its appearance was not very imposing, yet, on the other hand, it was not without a certain wild beauty. Before them spread the waters of the bay, with islands half concealed in mist; while immediately in front, a steep, rocky bank went sheer down for some thirty or forty feet to the beach below.