Page:Tourist's Maritime Provinces.djvu/457

Rh travellers are most interested is that of St. Peter.

When we had rounded the promontory which faces Newfoundland, 18 miles to the north, our altered course disclosed the capital of the Miquelons ascending from an oval harbour toward the heights which crown the island. Inside the basin's reefy gate the drying nets of over-sea trawlers bellowed like brown ensigns; in the misty wind, schooners' sails breathed to and fro as gulls lift waking wings. On the out-reaching cliff of Galantry Head the mighty pharos that flashes afar the menace of these shores, still did duty through the dawn. Here and there, lights glimmered from cottages that bossed the hillside above our prow, but for the most part the grey village of St. Pierre still stretched on its ledge asleep.

At the foot of the gang-plank the same uniform confronted us as confronts one at Villefranche or Boulogne. And we answered, as there, "Jai rien à declarer, Monsieur," and were chalked free with a negligent smile. A few men, broad-bodied, dressed in sea clothes, leaned against the walls of shuttered stores to watch the disembarking of passengers and the unloading of the cargo, mainly composed of food-stuffs from Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island, hardware from Connecticut and brick and cement from Bangor. Below the quay dorymen busied themselves with spark plug and petrol. But in the silence of early morning the wide embankment was blank and still except