Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Ipswich Sparrow (Ammodramus Princeps Maynard) And Its Summer Home
The only communication the island has with the mainland is by the Government steamer which at long and irregular intervals carries supplies thither for the seventeen men (several of them with families) who now look after the two lighthouses and four life-saving stations. The trip, if made from Halifax, usually occupies a whole day, but the boat may spend days or even weeks supplying the other lighthouses of the Nova Scotia (or occasionally the Newfoundland) coast before it proceeds to Sable Island. The frequent fogs and the impossibility of making a landing unless the wind is in the right quarter, are other sources of delay and danger in visiting the place, and to accomplish it an unlimited amount of time and patience must be at one's disposal. The voyages to and from the island actually occupied me six days, two of which were spent at anchor in the fog. As I went off in the first boat that 'had visited the island in five months I confess to some misgivings when the steamer left me, as to how long I might be obliged to play Robinson Crusoe. Like that gentleman I swept up the beach on the crest of a breaker, but I had the advantage of him in being comfortably seated in a surf boat. The cordiality of my reception quickly dispelled all doubts as to my surviving for an indefinite period, and when I left the island it was with regret, for everybody seemed to take an interest in my researches, and no sooner was a nest found or a bird caught than the intelligence came to me over the telephone wires that connect the different stations, and some of the domesticated wild ponies were ready in the barns to transport me wherever I wished to go.
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