OASIS 00 HUNTING. 309 



more appetite than he has for the most recherche dinner that 

 civilization can give him at home. Some of the Indians are 

 good cooks ; they bake capital bread, either in a tin thing 

 made for the purpose, or in the ashes ; the latter method 

 is the best. When the larder is supplied with fresh meat, 

 they make capital soups and stews, with the addition of 

 an onion or two, compressed vegetables, pepper, and salt. 



After supper, the hunter wraps his blanket round his 

 head and shoulders, and stretching his feet to the fire 

 sleeps as soundly after a little practice as he does in his 

 bed, dreaming of the cariboo he will shoot on the morrow. 



The woodland cariboo of North America (Eangifer 

 tarandus), as I remarked before, is almost, if not quite, 

 identical with -the reindeer of northern Europe. On 

 both continents it is found only in the more northern 

 latitudes. The woodland cariboo is found in all the 

 northern forests of Canada, from the head of Lake Superior 

 in the west to Newfoundland in the extreme east. It 

 is a shy and wandering animal, travelling immense 

 distances in search of food. In some districts it makes 

 regular migrations to the south on the approach of 

 winter, returning again northward in the spring. Cariboo 

 frequent rocky, barren districts, and are consequently 

 not much interfered with by the settler. In parts of 

 Lower Canada, in Labrador, in Gaspe, and in Newfound- 

 land, they still roam almost undisturbed by the hunter. 

 Except in Newfoundland, they are never hunted by the 

 settlers, for two reasons ; first, because the hide is of no 

 commercial value ; and, secondly, because they don't know 

 how to do it. Would it were so also with the moose; but 

 these unwieldy beasts cannot travel in the deep snow, and 



