the Red Indians in Newfoundland, * ' 3l!S 



tainly very Jiltie used, lay thrown up among the bushes at the 

 beacli . We supposed that the violence of a storm had rent it in 

 the way it was found, and that the people who were in it had 

 perished ; for the iron nails, of which there was no want, all re- 

 mained in it. Had there been any survivors, nails being much 

 prized by these people, they never having held intercourse with 

 Europeans, such an article would most likely have been taken 

 out for use again. All the birch trees in the vicinity of the lake 

 had l)een rinded, and many of them and of the spruce fir or 

 var (Pinus balsamifera, Canadian balsam tree) had the bark ta- 

 ken of, to use the inner part of it for food, as noticed before. 



Their wooden repositories for the dead are what are in the 

 most perfect state of preservation. These are of different con-. 

 htructions, it would appear, according to the character or rank 

 of the persons entombed. In one of them, which resembled a 

 hut ten feet by eight or nine, and four or five feet high in the 

 centre, floored with squared poles, the roof covered with rinds of 

 trees, and in every way well secured against the weather inside, 

 and the intrusion of wild beasts, there were two grown persons 

 laid out at full length, on the floor, the bodies wrapped round 

 with deer-skins. One of these bodies appeared to have been 

 placed here not longer ago than five or six years. We thought 

 there were children laid in here also. On first opening this 

 building, by removing the posts which formed the ends, our cu- 

 riosity was raised to the highest pitch ; but what added to our 

 surprise, was the discovery of a white deal coffin, containing a 

 skeleton neatly shrouded in white muslin. After a long pause 

 of conjecture how such a thing existed here, the idea of Mar^ 

 March occurred to one of the party, and the whole mystery 

 was at once explained *. 



• It should be remarked here, that ^ary March, so called from the name 

 of the month in which she was taken, was the Red Indian female who was 

 captured and carried away by force from this place by an armed party of 

 English people, nine or ten in number, who came up here in the month of 

 March 1809. The local government authorities at that time did not foresee 

 the result of offering a reward to brinff a Red Indian to them. Her husband 

 was cruelly shot, after nobly making several attempts, single-handed, to res- 

 cue her from the captors, in defiance of their fire-arms and fixed bayonets. 

 His tribe built this cemetery Ibr him, on the foundation of his own wigwam, 

 and his body is one of those now in it. The following winter, Captain Buchau 

 was sent to the River Exploits, by order of the local government of New- 



