24 THE LABRADOR PEXIXSULA. chap. xxi. 



last and the beginning of tlie present century. For more 

 than one hundred years they appear to have been ahnost 

 entirely neglected by the missionaries, so that the whole 

 nation, which was still numerous, became to a great ex- 

 tent heathen once more. 



In 1786 Cartwright, describing the Montagnais whom 

 he saw on the Atlantic coast of Labrador, says : — 



These people * inhabit the interior parts of the country, 

 which they traverse by the assistance of canoes covered with 

 birch-rinds in the summer, and of rackets or snow-shoes in 

 the winter. Their weapons are guns and bows ; the latter are 

 used only to kill moose game, but their chief dependence is on 

 the gun, and they are excellent marksmen, particularly with 

 single ball. They are wonderfully clever at killing deer, other- 

 wise they would starve ; and when they are in a part of the 

 country in the winter time where deer are scarce, they will 

 follow a herd by the slot day and night until they tire them 

 quite down, when they are sure to kill them all. I must not 

 be understood literall}^, that they take no rest all that time, for 

 if the night is light enough they rest only four or five hours, 

 then pursue again : which space of time being too short for 

 the deer to obtain either rest or food, they are commonly jaded 

 out by the fourth day They kill beavers by watch- 

 ing for and shooting them, or by staking their houses, the 

 method of doing which I will endeavour to explain. If the 

 pond where the beaver house is be not capable of being drawn 

 dry, they cut a hole through the roof of the house into the 

 lodging, to discover the angles ; they then run stakes through 

 at the edge of the water, where the house is always soft, parallel 

 to each other, across each angle, and so near together that no 

 beaver can pass between. The stakes being all fitted in their 

 places, they draw them up to permit the beavers to return into 

 the house (the hole in the top being covered up so close as not 

 to admit au}^ light), and then hunt with their dogs, backwards 



* Cartwriglit's Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador, 1786, vol. iii. 

 p. 229. 



