the Red Indian^ in Newfoundland. 3?7 



miles an liour or more, witli considerable risk of destruction to 

 tlie whole party, for we were always together on one raft. 



What arrests the attention most, while gliding down the 

 stream, is the extent of the Indian fences to entrap the deer. 

 They extend from the lake downwards, continuous, on the banks 

 of the river, at least thirty miles. There are openings left here 

 and there in them, for the animals to go through and swim across 

 the river, and at these places the Indians are stationed, and kill 

 them in the water with spears, out of their cancxjs, as at the lake. 

 Here, then, connecting these fences with those on the north-west 

 side of the lake, is ^t least forty miles of country, easterly and 

 westerly, prepared to intercept all the deer that pass that way 

 in their periodical migrations. It was melancholy to contem- 

 plate the gigantic, yet feeble, efforts of a whole primitive nation, 

 in their anxiety to provide subsistence, forsaken and going to 

 decay. 



V' There must have been hundreds of the Red Indians, and 

 that not many years ago, to have kept up these fences and 

 jx)unds. As their numbers were lessened so was their ability 

 to keep them up for the purposes intended ; and now the deer 

 pass the whole line unmolested. 



We infer, that the few of these people who yet survive have 

 taken refuge in some sequestered spot, still in the northern part 

 of the island, and where they can procure deer to subsist on;f: 



On the 29th November we were again returned to the mouth 

 of the River Exploits, in thirty days after our departure from 

 thence, after having made a complete circuit of about 200 miles 

 in the Red Indian territory. 



I have now stated generally the result of my excursion, avoid- 

 ing, for the present, entering into any detail. The materials col- 

 lected on this, as well as on my excursion across the interior a 

 few yeai's ago, and on other occasions, put me in possession of 

 a general knowledge of the natural condition and productions 

 of Newfoundland ; and, as a member of an institution formed 

 to protect the aboriginal inhabitants of the country in which 

 we live, and to prosecute inquiry into the moral character of 

 man in his primitive state, I can, at this early stage of our in- 

 stitution, assert, trusting to nothing vague, that we already pos- 

 sess more information concerning these people than has been ob- 



