We expect to reach the quarantine ground (Gros Isle) this evening, where the pilot says we shall be detained three days.  Though we are all in good health, yet, having sailed from an infected port, we shall be detained on the quarantine ground, but not allowed to land.

August 12.—­We reached Gros Isle yesterday evening.  It is a beautiful rocky island, covered with groves of beech, birch, ash, and fir-trees.  There are several vessels lying at anchor close to the shore; one bears the melancholy symbol of disease, the yellow flag; she is a passenger-ship, and has the smallpox and measles among her crew.  When any infectious complaint appears on board, the yellow flag is hoisted, and the invalids conveyed to the cholera-hospital or wooden building, that has been erected on a rising bank above the shore.  It is surrounded with palisadoes and a guard of soldiers.

There is also a temporary fort at some distance from the hospital, containing a garrison of soldiers, who are there to enforce the quarantine rules.  These rules are considered as very defective, and in some respects quite absurd, and are productive of many severe evils to the unfortunate emigrants.

When the passengers and crew of a vessel do not exceed a certain number, they are not allowed to land under a penalty, both to the captain and the offender; but if, on the contrary, they should exceed the stated number, ill or well, passengers and crew must all turn out and go on shore, taking with them their bedding and clothes, which are all spread out on the shore, to be washed, aired, and fumigated, giving the healthy every chance of taking the infection from the invalids.  The sheds and buildings put up for the accommodation of those who are obliged to submit to the quarantine laws, are it the same area as the hospital.

[* It is to be hoped that some steps will be taken by Government to remedy these obnoxious laws which have repeatedly entailed those very evils on the unhappy emigrants that the Board of Health wish to avert from the colony at large.

Many valuable lives have been wantonly sacrificed by placing the healthy in the immediate vicinity of infection, besides subjecting them to many other sufferings, expenses, and inconvenience, which the poor exile might well be spared.

If there must be quarantine laws—­and I suppose the evil is a necessary one—­surely every care ought to be taken to render them as little hurtful to the emigrant as possible.]

Nothing can exceed the longing desire I feel to be allowed to land and explore this picturesque island; the weather is so fine, and the waving groves of green, the little rocky bays and inlets of the island, appear so tempting; but to all my entreaties the visiting surgeon who came on board returned a decided negative.

A few hours after his visit, however, an Indian basket, containing strawberries and raspberries, with a large bunch of wild flowers, was sent on board for me, with the surgeon’s compliments.