S2 THE MAGDALEXE ISLANDS — PATTERSON. 



about everywhere ! If we want to see extinct animals, still in 

 the flesh, look at those slab-sided, long-legged creatures with 

 subsoil snouts, who seem almost lords of the soil. One reason 

 given for not attending better to their farming is that they have 

 no mills to grind their grain, or even to card their wool, there 

 being no streams on the island continuous enough to maintain 

 one. But this need not hinder, but should rather encourage 

 attention to their stock. And it has been suggested, that 

 the want of water power might be easily supplied by windmills, 

 of which the motive power is at hand in abundance. 



But fishing is really the great business of the inhabitants. The 

 time is not long past when their fishing grounds were the most 

 productive perhaps in the world. Men scarcely past middle life 

 tell of seeinsf three hundred vessels off their shore at one time, 

 and getting full cargoes in a few days, or of Pleasant Bay being 

 so packed with herring that men had only to dip them up till 

 their vessel was full. These days are past, but still fishing is 

 the principal employment of the people. 



The first in March and April is the seal hunting. As the 

 time approaches men ascend the highest hills, and eagerly scan 

 the ice round the shores for a sight of the black forms, which are 

 easily discerned at a long distance. When the word is given 

 that they have appeared the news spreads like wild fire. It is 

 celebrated by the ringing of bells and firing of guns, and the 

 whole inhabitants are roused to feverish excitement. From 

 every quarter men make for the ice, armed with knives and 

 clubs. Even the women gather at the shore where they prepare 

 warm meals for the men, and perhaps help in skinning the seals 

 after they are landed. The men go out on the ice, taking with 

 them small flat-bottomed boats usually called flats, in case of the 

 ice parting. Then goes on the slaughter and afterwards the 

 dragging the dead bodies to the shore, the latter, very laborious 

 work. The work is also not without danger. ' The ice may break 

 away from the shore ice with the wind and carry the unfortu- 

 nate fishermen to sea. Seal fishing is also conducted with nets 

 made for the purpose of strong cord with large meshes. If the 

 ice moves, so that the hunting cannot be prosecuted from the 



