" I proposed we
should take the wind as we found it, and run for Chesencook, a French
settlement, a short distance to the westward of us, and effect our
object there, which I thought very probable, as no American vessels
put in there if they can avoid it. This proposition met the approval
of all parties, so we put the "Black Hawk" before the wind, and by
sunset were safely and securely anchored. The sails were scarcely
furled before the fog set in, or rather rose up, for it seemed not so
much to come from the sea as to ascend from it, as steam rises from
heated water.
It seemed the work of magic, its appearance was so sudden. A moment
before there was a glorious sunset, now we had impenetrable darkness.
We were enveloped as it were in a cloud, the more dense perhaps
because its progress was arrested by the spruce hills, back of the
village, and it had receded upon itself. The little French settlement
(for the inhabitants were all descended from the ancient Acadians) was
no longer discernible, and heavy drops of water fell from the rigging
on the deck. The men put on their "sow-wester" hats and yellow oiled
cotton jackets. Their hair looked grey, as if there had been sleet
falling. There was a great change in the temperature--the weather
appeared to have suddenly retrograded to April, not that it was so
cold, but that it was raw and uncomfortable.
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