ENDURANCE OF NATIVES. 183 



escape, and yet I fear that the faint description of a really short, 

 but to me long and tiresome walk, or rather tramp of this kind 

 which shall be told, will be far from giving you a true idea of what 

 a Labradorian day's march, over hill and bay, may be. Though the 

 hills are high, their caps snowy, and their sides slippery ; though 

 strangers would soon be tired out by excessive fatigue in climbing 

 and slipping over them ; the people here think no more of it than 

 if the tramp were one over a level plain that we would walk 

 with ease and comfort. The whole coast for many miles inland is 

 one vast extent of hills, from three to five hundred feet above 

 the sea level ; and yet the men go over them from place to place, 

 visiting house after house, stopping simply for a few moments' rest 

 or chat with some neighbor, or to eat a frugal meal at another's 

 hospitality, — for hospitality is offered here even among those who are 

 enemies in every other way, and it is counted a sin to refuse such 

 when houses are often a day's march apart — while a day's march of 

 twenty, thirty, and in rare instances forty miles, of such travelling 

 is far from being unusual. One may wonder how such journeys 

 are made, but it is impossible to account for them other than by the 

 natural hardihood of the people here, who live and thrive on the 

 coarsest of food. Not long since a man walked a distance of 

 about seventy miles in two days ; quite recently, parties have gone 

 deer hunting, twenty miles into the interior, stalking deer all 

 day, returning to their simple cabin at night, having travelled forty 

 miles. Nor are such events uncommon ; the people here think 

 nothing of it, and, in fact, tell of the many miles that they have 

 walked with considerable pleasure. It is of course pleasant to 

 ramble over these snow-capped hills ; to see the beauties of nature, 

 expressed in the indescribable language of nature, from elevations 

 and depressions, from ponds and gorges, and snow alternating with 

 rock or discovered lichens, or chilled vegetation ; but a stroll 

 over a bay of frozen ice, with hills about and around one, and 

 islands here and there, while you walk comfortably along and fill 

 yourself with the scene, is, perhaps, still more pleasant. 



My walk from Old Fort Bay to Bonne Esperance was undertaken 



