228 LABRADOR MAILS. 



apart all up and down the coast it is an easy matter to drop into 

 one of them for the night, and along the route the mailman is 

 always welcome. Strange to say, there are branch post-offices at 

 stated places along the line, and at these places only is the bag 

 opened, while the carrier takes the letters to the various people to 

 whom they are directed on his homeward trip ; and even this is 

 done by courtesy, since it is required by law, I believe, that the 

 letters shall only be delivered to those to whom they are addressed 

 by the lawful mailman ; the carrier, being only a paid messenger, 

 has no responsibility but to deliver the bag containing the letters 

 and papers in safe condition to the postmaster at the end of the 

 route, who takes upon himself the responsibility of sending them 

 along the line by the returning carrier — thus making himself liable, 

 while trusting only in the good faith of the carrier, to damage for 

 any losses sustained. At Esquimaux Point, the mail is taken by 

 another man who has travelled u{) the coast while the first man 

 was travelling down. The carrier from Bersimis returns to that 

 place with the return mail, while the one from Bonne Esperance, 

 who has thus disposed of the up mail on its way to Quebec, returns 

 to the former place with the down,mail. This is taken in the usual 

 way, but more frequently by komatik, since the bays are generally 

 frozen over by this time, and travelling upon them is infinitely 

 better than over the deep snow- clad hills which here begin to line 

 the coast. I should have said that the mail first stops at Mingan, a 

 post of the Hudson's Bay company, where one of that company's 

 agents is usually an authorized mail agent also. From Esquimaux 

 Island the mail goes to Natashquan, the next regular office, a dis- 

 tance of about one hundred miles, and from that place, through a 

 tract of country the most difficult yet travelled, especially in bad or 

 mild winter weather. The carrier is often obliged to go over high hills, 

 away inland, to cross creeks or bays that are not yet frozen over, 

 and which are scarcely a mile or two across, and at^St. Augustine, 

 much out of the regular route, to cross the deep and irregular cut 

 of Shecatica Bay to Bonne Esperance. The whole distance, thus 

 reckoned, is about two hundred and fifty miles. Thus from 



