168 LABRADOR 



about, looking everywhere for "good tucks" of fish, and 

 often so anxious to get the fish quickly that they leave the 

 very places that later turn out to be best, only to find no 

 others and so go home empty or " clean." 



These wandering schooners are called " green fish" 

 catchers, and when they have taken their "fare," or when 

 their time is "runned up," they come south, pick up the 

 freighters they left, and carry them to their homes. Of 

 late, however, more "make," or dry, their fish at the har- 

 bour, where their freighters are doing the same thing. 

 Though curing seems an easy matter, it involves much work 

 and infinite patience. At home the gardens left in the 

 spring sorely need tending now, and every man is anxious 

 to be getting ready for the winter. Yet often for a week 

 at a time, wet and cold days prevent any work being done. 

 So valuable are fine days that a certain medicine was ad- 

 vertised along the coast as a guarantee to "cure all" and 

 to "give eight fine fish days" to any one buying five dollars' 

 worth. 



The actual number of the vessels visiting Labrador I am 

 unable to obtain, probably one thousand each year. 

 Every year quite a number go down that neither "clear" 

 nor " register" at the customs-houses. About twenty thou- 

 sand persons, all told, constitute the summer exodus from 

 Newfoundland. 



One or two steamers have been used in the Labrador cod- 

 fishery of recent years, but the people are strongly preju- 

 diced against their introduction. They have seen the 

 steamers supplant the schooners entirely for catching seals. 

 They have seen any chance of large returns pass entirely 

 out of reach of the small fisherman. Moreover, they be- 



