River. But the result was not different this time. A fine breeze kept
us going all day and the following night. But the next day the fog
came. It was no different from the cold, damp, land-mark obscuring
mist of the Maine coast in its facility in hiding from view everything
we most wanted to see in order to safely find the harbor that we knew
must be near at hand, though we could not tell just where. A headland,
looming up to twice its real height in the fog about it, was rounded,
and the lead followed in the hope that it would take us to the desired
haven. Soon a fishing boat hailed, and a voice, quickly followed by a
man, emerged from the fog and shouted that if we went farther on that
course we would be among the shoals. We were told we had passed the
mouth of the harbor, and so turning back, tried to follow our guide,
but he soon disappeared. Just at this moment when it seemed
impossible for us to find any opening, the fog lifted and we saw a
schooner's sail over one of the small islets that lay about us. Taking
our cue from that we poked into the next narrow channel we came to,
and getting some sailing directions from a passing boat, and from the
signal man stationed on a bluff to give assistance to strangers, we
glided into an almost circular basin, hardly large enough for the
vessel to swing in, set among steep rising sides, into which many ring
bolts were seen to be fastened, and perfectly sheltered from every
wind. The use for the ring bolts we found later. The fog kept rolling
over, and the little fishing vessels kept shooting in, till it seemed
the harbor would not hold another. As all sail had to be hauled down
before the vessels came in sight of the interior, the vessels seemed
literally to scoot into the basin. A few of the vessels were anchored
and kept from swinging by lines to the bolts, and the rest of the
fleet made fast to them. In all the number of vessels crowded into the
space where we hardly thought we could lie was about twenty. How they
would ever get out seemed a puzzle, but the next morning it was