22 APPENDIX, NO. I. 



of the men being probably absent ; the number of children 

 was about thirty, and most of them not exceeding six years 

 of age, and never certainly were liner infants seen. 



Whatever their numbers may be in the interior of New- 

 foundland, there did not appear to be any want of pro- 

 visions ; the quantity of venison we saw packed up was 

 very considerable ; there were besides on the margin of the 

 pond whole carcasses, which must have been killed ere the 

 frost set in, seven of them being frozen within the ice ; the 

 packs were nearly three feet in length, and in breadth and 

 depth fifteen inches, packed up with fat venison cleared of 

 the bone, and in weight from a hundred and fifty to two 

 hundred pounds, each pack being neatly cased round with 

 bark. The lakes and ponds abound with trout, and flocks 

 of wild geese annually visit them in the months of May and 

 October ; and their vigorous appearance points out, that 

 the exercise to procure food is only conducive to health. 



The opinion, therefore, of their numbers being few, 

 because of their not being seen so much as formerly, is I 

 think an erroneous one. Thnt they should not appear near 

 the coasts of the island is easily explained. The settlers 

 thought they conld not do a more meritorious act than to 

 shoot an Indian whenever he could fall in with him. They 

 were thus banished from their original haunts into the 

 interior, of which they had probably but little knowledge, 

 their chief dependance for food being fish and sea fowl. 

 They probably were not then as now provided with the 

 proper implements for killing deer, at least in sufficient 

 quantities for their subsistence. As our establishments 

 and population increased to the northward of Cape Freels, 

 they were obliged to retreat farther fiom the coast ; but the 

 same evil that forced the natives to retreat, brought with it 

 the means whereby they might still procure subsistence with 

 a more independent life ; for as the fisheries increased and 

 the settlers became more numerous, the natives were en- 

 abled to obtain iron and other articles by plunder and from 

 wrecks. 



