e and an abundant supply
of bed-clothing,--precautions required by the frequency of ships being
ice-bound in these latitudes. There were several casks of biscuits,
some flour, a large chest of maize, besides three large tanks of water,
supplied by the rain. A few bags of salt and some scattered objects
of clothing completed the catalogue, which, if not very luxurious,
contained nearly everything of absolute necessity.

I lighted a good fire in the stove, less because I felt cold, for it
was still autumn, than for the companionship of the bright blaze and the
crackling wood. This done, I proceeded to make myself a bed on one of
the platforms, arranged like bed-places round the walls, and of which
I saw the upper ones seemed to have a preference in the opinion of my
predecessors, since, in these, the greater part of the bed-clothing
was to be found,--a choice I could easily detect the reason of, in
the troops of rats which walked to and fro, with a most contemptuous
indifference to my presence; some of them standing near me while I made
my bed, and looking, as doubtless they felt, considerably surprised
at the nature of my operations. Promising myself to open a spirited
campaign against them on the morrow, I trimmed and lighted a large lamp,
which from its position had defied their attempt on the oil it still
contained; and then, a biscuit in hand, betook myself to bed, watching
with an interest not, I own, altogether pleasant, the gambols of these
primitive natives of Anticosti.

From my earliest years I had an antipathy to rats,--so great that it
mastered all the instincts of my courage. I feared them with a fear I
should not have felt in presence of a wild beast, and I was confident
that had I been attacked vigorously by e\en a single rat, the natural
disgust would have rendered me unable to cope with him. When very young,
I remembered hearing the story of an officer who, desirous of visiting
the vaults under St. Patrick's Church, in Dublin, descended into them
under the escort of the sexton. By some chance they separated from
each other, and the sexton, after in vain seeking and calling for his
companion for several hours, concluded that he had already returned to
the upper air; and so he returned also, locking and barring the heavy
door, as was his wont. The following day the officer's friends, alarmed
at his absence, proceeded to make search for him through the city, and
at last, learning that he had visited the ca