56 VIKINGS OF TO-DAY 



Streams of icebergs, floating all the summer to the 

 southward before the polar current, render it always 

 unwise to stay at sea at night. With sudden calms 

 and baffling winds from high perpendicular cliffs, 

 making a harbour without a tug is always hard 

 enough ; but here, in addition, the constant and dense 

 fogs make it often impossible, without any kind of 

 guide, even to find a harbour at all; for in places 

 shoals and ledges run out twenty miles to seaward. 

 Yet for all this shameful neglect on the part of the 

 Newfoundland Government, the weak defence is 

 constantly made, " Not many lives are lost." That I 

 know to be due solely to the consummate seamanship 

 and daring perseverance of the fishermen. Among 

 many good vessels, many are bad, and, worse still, 

 are provided with but bad tackle and holding-gear. 

 The latter is an absolute essential, with the liability 

 that exists to sudden hurricanes, and I believe more 

 vessels are lost in Labrador from this one cause 

 than all others put together. Moreover many, as I 

 have already pointed out, are greatly overcrowded. 

 More than once we saw vessels drifting to destruc- 

 tion, and once, when holding on ourselves for all we 

 were worth, we had the pleasure of saving a com- 

 rade by running him a coir hawser, and so holding 

 him on the verge of the rocks after his own tackle 

 had given out and the crew had received brief notice 

 to quit through the boiling surf. 



It must be remembered that Newfoundland, our 

 oldest colony, exists solely by its fishery ; that one 



