194 A SUMMER SAIL TO THE LABRADOR COAST 



passage of the light birch-bark canoe of the mountaineer Indian ; 

 of the appalling spectacle of tumbled masses of boulders and bare 

 rocks undulating in every direction as far as the eye can reach, 

 brpken only here and there with patches of yellow mosses and grey 

 reindeer lichens, or diversified once in awhile by dense fir trees 

 and birches darkly clothing the windings of the deeper valleys. 

 Over vale and plain and mountain there has fallen apparently 

 a hail of huge rock boulders, for the country almost everywhere 

 resembles a battlefield of the Titans. Sometimes detached boulders 

 lie in huge heaps three or four strata deep. Often the desolation 

 is still further accentuated by the blackness left by fires which have 

 spread far and wide, fed during some summer of drought chiefly 



DRYING COD ON THE LABRADOR COAST. 



by^the crisp mosses and lichens. ' God in making this country 

 here threw down the refuse of His materials,' quaintly remarks_an 

 old historian and voyager. 



Repelling and depressing as is this fearful coast at the first 

 glimpse, yet a closer acquaintance reveals many phases of wild 

 life and nature so novel and interesting that one usually ends by be- 

 coming completely fascinated by the spell of his strange environment. 



The mammals of this wild region are what one might expect 

 in such inhospitable quarters. The white bear, wolves, generally 

 hunting in packs and seldom solitary, the lynx, black bear, and tin- 

 robust caribou, far smaller than his better-nurtured fellows in the 

 island of Newfoundland, here manage to support existence, 



