on RED INDIANS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 139 



in archery they have an unerring hand. Besides providing for the present, they laid up 

 supplies for the winter. 



Their life here, however, as he describes it, was that of a hunted wild beast. " From 

 the time of their coming down to the coast," he says, " they are obliged to observe all the 

 vigilance of war. Few in numbers, and in dread of the firearms of the whites, their life 

 is one of constant alarm. It being necessary to separate into small families to obtain sub- 

 sistence, renders them an easy conquest to a single boat's crew. There is no codfishery, 

 and consequently there are no inhabitants within the very exterior verge of these islands, 

 but thoy are often visited by boats that carry the salmon-fishers, shipbuilders, sawyers, 

 woodmen and furriers, as well as by such as row from isle to isle in quest of game. The 

 Indians, from their secret haunts, let not a motion of all these people escape them. They 

 are careful to post themselves where they can command a view of all approaches and 

 secure an easy retreat. Their wigwams are frequently erected on a narrow isthmus, so 

 that their canoes may be launched into the water on the safe side, wherever an enemy's 

 boat appears.' Both day and nigiit they keep an uniutermitting lookout, so that to sur- 

 prise them requires uncommon address and subtlety Even to gain a sight of them is no 

 small difficulty, as they seldom fail to discover the advances of the fishermen early enough 

 to make their retreat without being perceived- This is known to everyone who has tra- 

 versed these islands to any extent, as the traces of Indians are found wherever they land, 

 and sometimes such fresh signs of them as show that they have not quitted the spot 

 many minutes, and though these appearances may be observed every day, yet whole sea- 

 sons sometimes elapse without any Indians being seen by them." They cannot be too 

 watchful, for surprises in their wigwams generally prove fatal, and upon sudden acci- 

 dental meetings it has been the usual practice of the fishermen to destroy them unpro- 

 voked, while, terrified, they have attempted nothing but to make their escape." 



As to their numbers at that time, the people in that quarter estimated them some at 

 two hundred and others at three hundred. But Mr. Cartwright thought that they might 

 amount to two hundred more. The reason why the residents estimated them so low 

 was that they were so seldom seen, and that only between Cape Freels and Cape John. 

 But he justly remark.s that between these two boundaries is a distance of thirty leagues, 

 in which there would be an island for every man, and nearly twenty capacious bays 

 and inlets deeply indenting the land. It was no wonder therefore that they could con- 

 ceal themselves. His principal reason, however, for his estimate was the number of 

 dwellings he found on the Exploits Eiver and at the lake, and he believed also that they 

 were to be found on some of the neighbouring streams. But in the number of decaying 

 wigwams he had painful evidence of the decrease in their numbers. At what he calls 

 June's Cove, from its having been described by June, the Indian lad, as the site of his 

 father's lodge, " there was a level space reaching within a quarter of a mile within the 

 beach that M^as cleared of timber and covered with old marks of an Indian settlement 

 now gone entirely to decay." 



It may be mentioned that the child whose mother was killed, as mentioned on page 

 131, was supposed to have been about four years of age at the time of his capture. He 



' Thi.s is confirmed by their remains having been found on such positions. 



^ George C'artwriglit says: " I met witli wigwams upon several of tliese islands in which the fires were burn- 

 ing, yet I never saw an Indian." 



