PREFACE. 



In presenting to the public the following journal sketches of the 

 country of which they treat, the thought that I am writing of a 

 region so new and so little known, though so near to us, together 

 with the pleasure which I have experienced both in my travels and 

 in the preparation of this account of them, will furnish a sufficient 

 excuse for the undertaking. Although so little has been known or 

 written about Labrador, yet it is a region not a thousand miles 

 away from us, and one which bears a most important relation to 

 the fishing interests of this continent. 



The knowledge of this region, which is within reach of the pub- 

 lic, is to be found only in the pages of an old-fashioned document, 

 of two volumes, now out of print, and almost unknown save to 

 large libraries, entitled ''Cartwright's Journal ;" in Hind's "Labrador 

 Peninsula," 2 vols., and in occasional articles in some magazine or 

 newspaper. If I have added some new and interesting matter to 

 our present knowledge of this subject, my labors will not have 

 been in vain. 



My first trip to Labrador was during the summer of 1875, when 

 I collected largely in all the branches of Natural History, and es- 

 pecially in Botany, finding, with the assistance of the Rev. I\Ir. 

 Butler, the then missionary to this region, many new and rare 

 plants. This number has since been enlarged and a catalogue of 

 them, as of collections in several other l^ranches of Natural History, 

 published in the sixth volume of the Report of the National 

 Museum, at Washington. In September, 1S80, I again visited the 



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