THE COUNTRY 3 



burned, caribou moss covers the rocks, with stunted 

 spruce, birch, and aspens in the hollows and deep 

 ravines. The whole is strewed with an infinite num- 

 ber of boulders often three and four deep. Language 

 fails to paint the awful desolation of the tableland 

 of the Labrador peninsula. The Atlantic coast is 

 the edge of a vast solitude of rocky hills, split and 

 blasted by frosts, and beaten by waves. Headlands, 

 grim and naked, tower over the waters often fan- 

 tastic and picturesque in shape while miles and 

 miles of rocky precipices or tame monotonous slopes 

 alternate with stony valleys, winding away among 

 the blue hills of the interior." 



The cliffs rise from the ocean to a height of 

 from 500 to 1,000 feet. The watershed of the in- 

 terior plateau is on an average 150 miles from the 

 coast, and rises considerably over 5,000 feet. Near 

 Cape Chidley the hills are close to the sea, rising to 

 the height of 6,000 feet, and the view from the sea 

 is magnificent. A powerful current coming from 

 Hudson Bay, combined with the great rise and fall 

 of tide, renders navigation here very dangerous. A 

 high, bare peak of syenite, inland from Cape Har- 

 rison, and known as Mount Misery, is visible seventy- 

 five miles. 



We are accustomed to think of Columbus as dis- 

 covering America, but it seems certain that about 

 the year 1000, while Northman and Saxon were 

 struggling for pre-eminence in this England of ours, 

 bold Vikings from Iceland visited Labrador. In the 



