ly out over the sea by the crane and dropped on the
thwarts of the waiting punt. One shudders to think of the probably
fatal shock received by the vertebrae of that machine. One's
sympathies, however, are almost immediately enlisted in the interest
and fortunes of a young and voiceful pig, which, poised in the blue,
unwillingly experiences for the moment the fate of the coffin of the
Prophet. Great shouting ensues as a baby is carried down the ship's
ladder and deposited in the rocking boat. A bag of beans, of the
variety known as "haricot," is the next candidate. A small hole has
been torn in a corner of the burlap sack, out of which trickles a
white and ominous stream. The last article to join the galaxy is a tub
of butter. By a slight mischance the tub has "burst abroad," and the
butter, a golden and gleaming mass,--with unexpected consideration
having escaped the ministrations of the winch,--is passed from one
pair of fishy hands to another, till it finds a resting-place by the
side of the now quiescent pig.

We pass out into the open again, bound for the next port of call. If
the weather chances to be "dirty," the sufferers from _mal-de-mer_ lie
about on every available spot, be it floor or bench, and over these
prostrate forms must one jump as one descends to the dining-saloon for
lunch. It may be merely due to the special keenness of my
professional sense, but the apparent proportion of the halt, lame, and
blind who frequent these steamers appears out of all relation to the
total population of the coast. Across the table is a man with an
enormous white rag swathing his thumb. The woman next him looks out on
a blue and altered world from behind a bandaged eye. Beside one sits a
young fisherman, tenderly nursing his left lower jaw, his enjoyment of
the fact that his appetite is unimpaired by the vagaries of the North
Atlantic tempered by an unremitting toothache.

But the cheerful kindliness and capability of the captain, the crew,
and the passengers, on whatever boat you may chance to travel,
pervades the whole ship like an atmosphere, and makes one forget any
slight discomfort in a justifiable pride that as an Anglo-Saxon one
can claim kinship to these "Vikings of to-day."

Life is hard in White Bay. An outsider visiting there in the spring of
the year would come to the conclusion that if nothing further can be
done for these people to make a more generous living, they should be
encouraged to go elsewhere. The