Note C — Chapter XVI · VICTORY AT LAST.

The little harbor that bears this gentle name, is a sheltered nook where ships may ride at anchor, safe from the storms of the ocean. It is but an inlet from the great arm of the sea known as Trinity Bay, which is sixty or seventy miles long, and twenty miles broad. On the beach is a small village of some sixty houses, most of which are the humble dwellings of those hardy men who vex the northern seas with their fisheries. The place was never heard of outside of Newfoundland till 1864, when Mr. Field, sailing up Trinity Bay in the surveying steamer Margaretta Stevenson, Captain Orlebar, R. N., in search of a place for the landing of the ocean cable, fixed upon this secluded spot. The old landing of 1858 was at the Bay of Bull's Arm, at the head of Trinity Bay, twenty miles above. Heart's Content was chosen now because its waters are still and deep, so that a cable skirting the north side of the Banks of Newfoundland can be brought in deep water almost till it touches the shore. All around the land rises to pine-crested heights; and here the telegraphic fleet, after its memorable voyage, lay in quiet, under the shadow of the encircling hills.