CHAPTER XXX. 



Labrador Episodes : The Squatters of Labrador. 



where you will, if a shilling can there be pro- 

 cured, you may expect to meet with individuals 

 in search of it. In the course of last summer 

 I met with several persons as well as families whom I 

 could not compare to anything else than what in America 

 we understand by the appellation of squatters. The 

 methods they employed to accumulate property form the 

 subject of the observations which I now lay before you. 

 Our schooner lay at anchor in a beautiful basin on the 

 coast of Labrador, surrounded by uncouth granite rocks, 

 partially covered with stunted vegetation. While search- 

 ing for birds and other objects I chanced one morning to 

 direct my eyes towards the pinnacle of a small island, 

 separated from the mainland by a very narrow channel, 

 and presently commenced inspecting it with my telescope. 

 There I saw a man on his knees, with clasped hands, and 

 face inclined heavenwards. Before him was a small mon- 

 ument of unhewn stones supporting a wooden cross. In 

 a word, reader, the person whom I thus unexpectedly dis- 

 covered was engaged in prayer. Such an incident in that 

 desolate land was affecting, for there one seldom finds 

 traces of human beings, and the aid of the Almighty, al- 

 though necessary everywhere, seems there peculiarly re- 

 quired to enable them to procure the means of subsist- 

 ence. My curiosity having been raised, I betook myself 

 to my boat landed on the rock, and scrambled to the 



