Finding That The Wind Usually Rose And Fell
With The Sun, We Now Made It A Rule To Anchor
Our Boat During Most Of The Day And Pull Against
The Current At Night.
The moon and the bright
auroral lights made this task an agreeable one.
Then, too, we had Coggia's comet speeding
through the northern heavens, awakening many
an odd conjecture in the mind of my old salt.
In this high latitude day dawned before three
o'clock, and the twilight lingered so long that
we could read the fine print of a newspaper
without effort at a quarter to nine o'clock P. M.
The lofty shores that surrounded us at Quebec
gradually decreased in elevation, and the tides
affected the river less and less as we approached
Three Rivers, where they seemed to cease
altogether. We reached the great lumber station
of Three Rivers, which is located on the left
bank of the St. Lawrence, on Friday evening,
and moved our canoe into quiet waters near the
entrance of Lake of St. Peter. Rain squalls
kept us close under our hatch-cloth till eleven
o'clock A. M. on Saturday, when, the wind being
fair, we determined to make an attempt to reach
Sorel, which would afford us a pleasant
camping-ground for Sunday.
Lake of St. Peter is a shoal sheet of water
twenty-two miles long and nearly eight miles
wide, a bad place to cross in a small boat in
windy weather. We set our sail and sped
merrily on, but the tempest pressed us sorely,
compelling us to take in our sail and scud under
bare poles until one o'clock, when we
double-reefed and set the sail.
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