I heard a Paddy once, at Halifax, describe the wreck of a carriage
which had been dashed to pieces. He said there was not "a smell of it
left." Poor fellow, he must have landed at Chesencook, and removed one
of those oloriferous heaps, as Sorrow called them, and borrowed the
metaphor from it, that there was not "a smell of it left." On the
beach between the "flakes" and the water, were smaller heaps of the
garbage of the cod-fish and mackarel, on which the grey and white
gulls fought, screamed, and gorged themselves, while on the bar were
the remains of several enormous black fish, half the size of whales,
which had been driven on shore, and hauled up out of the reach of the
waves by strong ox teams. The heads and livers of these huge monsters
had been "tried out in the Sperm court" for ile, and the putrid
remains of the carcass were disputed for by pigs and crows. The
discordant noises of these hungry birds and beasts were perfectly
deafening.
On the right-hand side of the harbour, boys and girls waded out on the
flats to dig clams, and were assailed on all sides by the screams of
wild fowl who resented the invasion of their territory, and were
replied to in tones no less shrill and unintelligible. On the left was
the wreck of a large ship, which had perished on the coast, and left
its ribs and skeleton to bleach on the shore, as if it had failed in
the vain attempt to reach the forest from which it had sprung, and to
repose in death in its native valley.
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