OE EED INDIANS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 127 



other provisions, did the next day seek after them, aud happened to come suddenly 

 where they had set up their tents aud were feasting, having three such canoes by them 

 and three pots of such rinds of trees, standing each of them on three stones, boiling with 

 twelve fowls in each of them, every fowl as big as a widgeon and some so big as a duck. 

 They had many such pots so sewed and fashioned like leather buckets that are used for 

 quenching fire, and those were full of the yolks of eggs that they had taken and boiled 

 hard, and so dried small as if it had been powder-sugar, which the savages used in their 

 broth as sugar is often used in some meats. 



" They had great store of the skins of deers, beavers, bears, seals, otters, aud divers 

 other fine skins, which were excellent and well dressed, as also great store of several 

 sorts of flesh dried ; and by shooting off a musket towards them they all ran away naked 

 without any apparel, but only some of them had their hats on their heads, which were 

 made of sealskins, in fashion like our hats, sewed handsomely, with narrow bands about 

 them, set round with fine white shells. All their three canoes, their flesh, skins, yolks of 

 eggs, targets, bows and arrows, and much fine ochre and divers other things they (i.e., 

 the vessel's crew) took aud brought away and shared it among those that took it. They 

 brought to me the best canoe, bows and arrows aud divers of their skins, and many other 

 artificial things worth the noting." 



The statement regarding the woh'es is a very curious one, and will engage attention 

 hereafter. The forming of dishes of bark or even of rushes, tight enough to hold water, 

 in which they boiled their food, as here described, was common among the Micmacs and 

 other American Indians. But the boiling was done by putting red-hot stones into the 

 vessel. And it is said that it could be done more cpickly in that way than in the ordinary 

 manner. 



He also asserts that Trinity Bay was avoided by vessels, partly from certain rocks, 

 but partly because the natives resided in the neighborhood and '"secretly came unto the 

 bay and harbour in the night time, purposely to steal sails, lines, hatchets, hooks, knives 

 and such like." He also says that at that time they never came to the south of Trinity 

 Bay. 



We may just add the description given by De Laet in his " Novus Orbis " : "They are 

 of medium stature, with black hair, broad face, large eyes. All the males are wilhout 

 beards. Both sexes stain not only their skin but their clothing with a certain red colour. 

 They dwell in humble lodges iormed of poles arranged in a circle and joined at the top. 

 They very often change their dwelling places." 



Omitting for the present any discussion of their origin, migrations aud ethnological 

 relations, we may observe that at that time Newfoundland must have been a paradise for 

 a race of hunters. Countless herds of caribou roamed through the interior, passing from 

 north to south in autumn and returning in spring. Vast flocks of ptarmigan, as well as 

 smaller game birds, were everywhere to be met with ; wild geese bred on its lakes, sea- 

 fowl in equal abundance thronged its coasts, while its rivers and countless lakes, as well 

 as the sea washing its shores, swarmed with fish of every variety. Even now there are 

 few better hunting-grounds than Newfoundland. What must it have been before the 

 white man occupied its harbours, and when the sound of their firearms had not disturbed 

 the vast solitudes of the interior. With the skill of the red man in capturing the denizens 

 of the stream and forest, this people must have lived iu a rude abundance. The great 



