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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
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