OE EED INDIANS OF NEWFOUNDLAND. 1S3 



smoke from the camps of the Red ludiaus, biit iu vain, though these hills command a very 

 extensive view^ of the country iu every direction. 



"We uow determined to proceed toward the Eed Indian Lake, sanguine that at that 

 known rendezvous we should find the objects of our search. 



" In about ten days we got a glimpse of this beautifully majestic and splendid sheet 

 of water. The ravages of fire, which we saw in the woods for the last two days, indicated 

 that man had been near. We looked down upon the lake, from the hills at the northern 

 extremity, with feelings of anxiety and admiration. No canoe could be seen moving on 

 its placid surface. We were the first Europeans who had seen it iu its unfrozen state.' 

 We approached the lake with hope and caution, but found, to our mortification, that the 

 Red Indians had deserted it for some years past. My party had been so excited, so san- 

 guine and so determined to obtain an interview of some kind with these people, that on 

 discovering, from appearances everywhere around us, that the Red Indians, tlie terror of 

 the Europeans as well as of the other Indian inhabitants of Newfoundland, no longer 

 existed, the spirits of one and all of us were very deeply affected. The old Mountaineer 

 was particularly overcome. There were everywhere indications that this had long been 

 the central and undisturbed rendezvous of the tribe. 



" We spent several melancholy days wandering on the borders of the east end of the 

 lake, surveying the various remains of what we now contemplated to be a cruelly extir- 

 pated people. At several places by the margin of the lake are small clusters of summer 

 aud winter wigwams iu ruins. There was one wooden building, constructed for drying 

 and smoking venison in, still perfect, also a small log-house in a dilapidated condition, 

 which we took to have been a storehouse. The wreck of a large, handsome birch-rind 

 canoe, about twenty-two feet in length, comparatively new, and certainly very little 

 used, lay thrown up among the bushes at the beach. The iron nails, of which there was 

 no want, all remained in it. Had there been any survivors, nails being much prized by 

 these people, such an article would likely have been taken out again. All the birch trees 

 in the vicinity of the lake had been rinded and likewise many of the spruce fir. 



" Their wooden repositories for the dead are in the most perfect state of preservation. 

 These are of ditFerent construction, it would appear, according to the rank of the person 

 entombed. In one of them, which resembled a hut ten feet by eight or nine and four or 

 five feet high in the centre, floored with square poles, the roof covered with the rind of 

 trees, aud in every way well secured against the weather and the intrusion of wild 

 beasts, the bodies of two full-grown persons were laid at length on the floor and wrapped 

 round with deer-skins. One of these bodies appeared to be entombed not longer than 

 five or six years. We thought there were children laid in here also. On first opening 

 this building, by removing the posts which formed the ends, our curiosity was raised to 

 the highest pitch ; but what added to our surprise was the discovery of a white deal cof- 

 fin containing a skeleton neatly shrouded in white muslin. After a long pause of con- 

 jecture how such a thing existed here, the idea of Mary March occurred to one of the 

 party, and the whole mystery was at once explained. 



" In this cemetery were deposited a variety of articles, in some instances the property, 

 in others the representatives of the property and utensils and of the achievements of the 



The visit of Cartwright was at tliis time forgotten. 



Sec. II, 1891. 20. 



