1001. THE SCANDINAVIANS. g 



and of the former of these, Canada, Labrador, the 

 shores of Hudson's Bay, and Newfoundland, afford 

 several species.^ There is, therefore, no reason to 

 call in question the veracity of the relation on ac- 

 count of the circumstance which gave the name of 

 Vinland to the new-discovered country. 



Though Newfoundland has now been settled 

 more than two hundred years, it is scarcely yet 

 known with certainty whether, in the interior, any 

 natives are found with permanent habitations on 

 the island, or whether they are not merely annual 

 visitors, who come over from the continent in the 

 summer months for the purposes of killing deer, 

 bears, wolves, and other animals, whose skins are 

 valuable for clothing and their flesh as food ; and for 

 catching salmon in the rivers, and collecting fowls 

 and eggs on the intermediate islands. Many of 

 these Indians have occasionally been met with in 

 their boats near the coast, but from the ill treat- 

 ment they experienced from the European fisher- 

 men, they withdrew themselves at an early pe- 

 riod from their intruders, and have since studious- 

 ly avoided all intercourse with them. It is this 

 which makes a recent expedition into the interior 

 of the island, under the command of Captain 



* Kibes prostratum is a native of Newfoundland ; and R. re- 

 curvatum, bearing a black berry resembling a grape, is found on 

 the shores of Hudson's Bay. Persoon, Synop. Plant, i. p. 251. 



