At Halifax some of our party fearing more delay in reaching Rockland, left us, so with diminished numbers but plenty of enthusiasm we made ready for the last stage of the voyage.  After some rather amusing experiences with our assistant steward or “cookee,” who seemed to reason that because he had been so long deprived of the luxuries of modern civilization he should employ the first opportunity he had to enjoy them in making himself incapable of doing so, and who was brought aboard the morning we sailed only after a somewhat prolonged search, we “squared away” for Cape Sable.  The fine fair wind ran us nearly down there, but just as we thought to escape the provoking calms that delayed us in this vicinity on the outward trip, we found the wind drawing ahead and failing.  A day was spent in slowly working around the cape, drifting back much of the time, and then we struck one of the southerly fog winds that are too well known on the Maine coast.  We were in waters on which our captain had been bred, and so we pushed on into the night, looking eagerly or listening intently as the darkness closed over us for some sign of approaching land.  At length, just about eleven, when it seemed we could not stand the suspense of knowing that thousands of rocks were just ahead but not just where they were, and yet equally unwilling to stop then, when so near home, we heard the sound of the breakers, and standing cautiously in on finding the water very deep, soon made Mt.  Desert rock light.  It was a welcome sight, and from there an easy matter to shape our course for home.  At day-break we could still see nothing, but towards noon, the wind being light and our progress slow, we passed the desolate house of refuge on the Wooden Ball Island, and soon the lifting fog showed us the mouth of Penobscot’s beautiful bay, and shortly after we dropped our anchor in the long wished for Rockland harbor, and the cruise of the Julia Decker and her crew of Bowdoin boys was ended.

[The royal welcome] The account would be incomplete, though, were reference omitted to the royal welcome that awaited us at Rockland.  Upon landing we found the church bells ringing, and the city’s business for the moment stopped, while the city fathers as well as a goodly number of her sons and daughters greeted us at the wharf.  In the evening there was another reception, and there the expedition as such appeared for the last time, and as the most fitting way in which we could express our gratitude at the interest shown in our work and safe return, as well as to contribute our share towards the evening’s entertainment, the Bowdoin College Labrador Expedition Glee Club rendered, as its last selection, a popular college song, of which the burden was, as also the title, “The wild man of Borneo has just come to town.”

Jonathan P. Cilley, Jr.

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[Missionary in Labrador] Since the Bowdoin College Labrador Expedition much interest has been taken by charitable women in the missionaries who are laboring in that bleak country.  As often as possible barrels of clothing and other useful articles have been sent to them.  In return the missionaries have sent interesting letters describing their work and acknowledging the gifts.  One of these, written to Mrs. James P. Baxter, of Portland, gives a description that will be of general interest: