252 GLACIAL MARKS — THE " RUSSINGEL." 



chas) , who appeared several times, for my express benefit, I sup- 

 pose, in plain sight, before finally disappearing into the underbrush 

 at the right. The remainder of the forenoon was spent in examining 

 the glacial rounded rocks, on which I found several well defined 

 scratches, and in following the stream for a short distance to the 

 meadows, or low marshy districts just beyond the houses ; walking 

 all the way on shelving rocks that, nearly level with both meadow 

 and stream, sloped off in large platforms into the water. This river, 

 I am told, is navigable only for small boats, and for only two miles 

 from its mouth, though I believe that the Indians travel somewhat 

 farther in their canoes. As the people living here were mostly 

 French I could glean but little from them. The harbor, however, 

 is a mass of shoals even to the mouth of the river, whose eastern 

 bank is sand, while the bed of the stream partakes somewhat of 

 the character of the harbor, as far as I saw it, at least. I here heard 

 the Canadian "russingel, " full of most tuneful melody for which it 

 is so noted throughout Canada. On the right bank of the river, 

 and bordering the beach, are quite a number of houses, while a 

 small island near by contains a cluster of as many more ; altogether 

 quite a settlement for this region. One large fishing establishment 

 has about forty boats and two hundred hands engaged in the fish- 

 eries, during their season ; while there is a postoffice which receives 

 mails to and from Quebec, Bonne Esperance, and the South Shore 

 by packet, via Gaspe, touching at Anticosti, between which latter 

 places a submarine cable has been recently laid, to give warning 

 of the shipwrecks which are so constantly occurring on this island. 

 Saturday the 28th. It was to-day, if I remember right, that we 

 experienced the first of the two noted dark days of 188 1. We were 

 about half-way between Natashquan, the point we had just left, and 

 Mingan, a post of the Hudson's Bay Company, to which we were 

 bound. Early in the morning the wind left us, and soon the atmos- 

 phere was clouded over with a dull murky and yellowish smoke- 

 colored light, that almost hid the sun. We could only see a faint 

 light spot where that luminary was protesting unsuccessfully against 

 such an infringement of its illuminating powers. By eleven o'clock 



