either to sanction them by their presence, or, by opposing them, to exercise in a foreign country a right of keeping order which was questionable, to say the least of it; both of them things to be avoided, if possible.  And our orders, in fact, were never to be seen at Labrador.  This regulation I conformed to; but behold, one fine day, a schooner from our local station at St. Pierre Miquelon casts anchor alongside of me, and the following colloquy ensues between the lieutenant in command and myself:—­

“Where are you going ?”

“To Labrador.”

“But you know the state of things.  There are the gravest objections to taking one of our warships there.”

“I know; but I have special and precise orders from the Minister for Naval Affairs.”

“What orders?”

“I have been ordered to go to Labrador to buy a dog for one of the secretaries to the minister.”

“That’s what you have been sent from St. Pierre Miquelon for?”

“Yes.”

I had to bow to this.  I could not set up my authority as commander-in-chief against that of the minister, so let the schooner go on her compromising mission.  Soon after, and not without regret, I set sail to continue our cruise Time had passed swiftly by, between the attention of every kind the health of the crew had necessitated, the drill of every sort we had devoted ourselves to, and the gun practice in the virgin forest, during which the ancient trees had been mown down by our projectiles We had lived a Robinson Crusoe sort of life on the largest scale—­it is a sort of life I have always had a weakness for.  After building our hospital, we had made limekilns for disinfecting the frigate, we had been wood-cutters, and charcoal burners, and carpenters.  We had made ourselves spare masts and spars.  We had drained ponds too; explored in all directions, hunting and fishing, and discovered lakes and rivers.

Though we made good bags during these excursions, they consisted of small game only.  Once I fired at, and to my deep regret I missed, a silver fox—­the animal dressed by nature in the richest and rarest of all her furs.  There were abundant tracks of bear and caribou.  We caught sight once of a huge gray wolf, striped like a zebra.  But none of these larger beasts fell to our guns.  We could not have got at them even with hounds, so continuously far stretching and impenetrable the forest was, and the only thing we had to help us was Fox, the ship’s dog, an excellent pointer by the way, the pet of everybody on board.  He fell into the sea one day when there was a strong breeze, and was picked up, still swimming sturdily along to catch up the frigate, on board of which he had a regular ovation when he got back.