OUR VOYAGE CONTINUED 115 



we had brought out, it should fall into the hands of 

 the most deserving. In this way also we became 

 possessed of a valuable record for future reference. 

 Thus in one house when visiting a case, I found my 

 patient to be the mother of a large family. The poor 

 thing, who, with self-sacrificing courage, had refused 

 to believe herself ill till she could get about no 

 more, was lying on one single wood form in a bare 

 and dirty room, her head close to an old cracked 

 stove, behind which a crowd of shivering urchins 

 were huddled together. The sickness was acute 

 bronchitis and pleurisy, made worse by little cloth- 

 ing and less food. A haggard man meanwhile 

 was pacing up and down, nursing a screaming and 

 hungry baby. I pulled the children out from behind 

 the stove for inspection; but their rags so failed to 

 cover them, that each hastened back at once after 

 the ordeal to the seclusion and warmth behind the 

 old stove. The complete attire of one bony little mite 

 was an old trouser leg, into which he was packed 

 like a sack. All were alike barefooted. 



Staying here over Sunday, I was the guest of a La- 

 brador fisherman, rather better off than the majority, 

 an erect, grey-haired man of about forty-five, stand- 

 ing some six feet two inches. His cottage, built with 

 his own hands, was a pattern of neatness and clean- 

 liness, but the bad seasons were compelling even 

 him to desert the harbour, and try squatting farther 

 along the coast. He was still the fortunate pos- 

 sessor, however, of a cod-trap (value about 80), by 



