Page:The Fun of It.pdf/91

Rh However, some of them strayed and stayed, and from these pioneers largely descended the inhabi­tants of today.

Quite different from the barrenness of the coast is the hospitality of the people. Little as they had, they shared it gladly with the strangers who had dropped down out of the skies. As a matter of fact, air visitors were no novelty to them. The Italian round-the-world flyer, de Pinedo, had been marooned there for many days in 1929 and the NC Navy flyers of 1919 had started from Trepassey with their giant sea planes.

As it took a week for the mail to come from Boston and as our friends in the “States” had not expected us to linger long in Trepassey, no mail caught up with us. But many messages reached us by telegraph, and eventually a newspaper cor­respondent from St. John’s came in on the little train which charges down from Newfoundland’s capital twice a week.

So long did we linger perforce in Trepassey that the natives began to think the Friendship couldn’t fly. During the first days of our stay, many came over from neighboring villages, and all who hadn’t seen our plane land seemed to feel we had taxied in and had never been off the water at all.

Unless the wind blows from a certain direction, Trepassey harbor is too narrow for take-off with a heavy load. When the “blow” is from the south­east, which is best for the take-off so far as the terrain is concerned, it brings in the fog that hangs