154 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. x. 



blind ? Tell me how it happened, and all you know 

 about it.' 



' Not a difficult affair to do, that ; but if you want to see 

 night-blind men, go on the St. Maurice, on the Matawan, 

 and even on the Upper Ottawa. Go in the spring of the 

 year, when the driving begins, and you wih 1 find plenty of 

 night-blind men, especially in shanties where they have 

 not a chance of getting a moose or a bear now and 

 then, or where the foreman is not over particular about 

 providing a plentiful supply of peas, and a few potatoes by 

 way of a change, to keep off the scurvy and the " night- 

 blind." But if you will be so good as to wait until we 

 arrive at the camp, after supper, I will tell you a " night-- 

 blind " story, which you may believe as you do your eyes 

 now, which show you snow on that mountain-top, and a 

 lake in the valley below us, where we are to camp to- 

 night.' 



Laronde stooped while I lifted the load on his back, 

 and adjusting the portage-strap on his forehead, glided 

 rapidly over the slippery gneiss, here and there wet with 

 trickling streamlets, which issued from beneath the moss 

 covering the rocks on one side of the portage path. 



Stopping at the beginning of a steep descent which led 

 to the lake below, he leaned back against a shelf of rock, 

 and turning to me said, in an excited tone, ' I assure you, 

 sir, it is a dreadful thing to be night-blind ; it conies on 

 you so suddenly, and you feel so helpless ; you stand or 

 sit still without daring to move if you don't know your 

 ground, and you think all sorts of things, when it first 

 begins with a dimness over the eyes. When it 's well on, 



o / 



you wonder whether you will ever see the blessed light 



