A LABRADOR SPRING 



at the succeeding date, and feast-days and 

 Sundays are pretty well observed." r 



The day was a dark and lowering one this 

 3ist of May; low-lying clouds scudded across 

 the sky, the sand-dunes were gray and for- 

 bidding, the river, over a mile wide here at the 

 mouth, the colour of lead. Loons were driving 

 north before the chilling blasts, in a continuous 

 stream, two or three every few minutes, and a 

 migrating band of tree swallows, with promise 

 of summer, flew joyously about the great river, 

 while on the bleak shore a picturesque scene 

 was being enacted by the Indians, the bright 

 colours of whose costumes relieved the sombre 

 gray ness of river and sky and shore. 



They were all intent on their purpose, these 

 savages of the Natashquan, and paid scant 

 attention to us, as they hastened down over 

 the sands to the shore of the river, carrying their 

 packs and pots and babies, men, women and 

 children, dogs and even cats, all higgledy- 

 piggledy, and all in a great hurry to be off. 

 There were perhaps eight or ten families in all, 

 men in the prime of life, with erect, wiry 



1 Labrador, by Wilfred T. Grenfell and others, New 

 York, 1909, pp. 224, 225. 



162 



