J30 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. vur. 



down deep declivities of bare rock, glistened in the sun. 

 Long bright-green strips on the mountain sides showed 

 where the birch had found a kindly soil, amidst a sea of 

 dark spruce or a dreary waste of herbless rock. 



We bathed in the second lake, but the temperature of 

 the water was not much removed above that of melting 

 snow. Crossing the second lake, we came to the Ka-te- 

 tu-kois-pish-kos, or Level Portage, with a rise of 197 feet, 

 and a length of three-quarters of a mile. Cold-water 

 Eiver falls 270 feet, between the lakes, in a distance not 

 exceeding 1200 yards. 



On the Level Portage we found much to admire, and 

 still more to speculate upon. First we crossed a beaver 

 meadow, but the beaver-houses had long since been 

 broken open, and the beaver were gone. As we ascended 

 100 feet or so of bare gneiss, the half-decayed poles of 

 Montagnais lodges, rotting where they fell, lay near a 

 mountain rill close to our path. 



But the Montagnais, like the beaver they hunted, are 

 gone, or wander in scattered bands on the coast. De- 

 scending in converging lines to the lake are old caribou 

 tracks ; but the caribou now shun this part of the country, 

 or are only rarely met with in small bands. Both cari- 

 bou and beaver will come again, and people this desert 

 once more ; but there will be no Montagnais or ISTasqua- 

 pees to hunt or disturb them in their secure retreat. 



The Labrador tea-plant is in bloom, and casts a faint 

 but delicious fragrance around. The gneiss, which rises 

 in gigantic terraces, one above the other, is covered with 

 brilliant-coloured lichens in rings, crescents, and ovals of 

 every hue, from the pale cream-coloured ' reindeer moss ' 



