256 THE NEIGHBORING COAST LINE. 



place or loose as bowlder, stone, or pebble. Strange to say, as will 

 be shown further on, the rocky precipices, or rather steps of the 

 rapids in Mingan river, some three miles from its mouth, seem to 

 be the first indications of rock formation in this locality, while these 

 are simply the eastern and southeastern boundary of a tremendous 

 mass of high rocky ground that extends inland for miles, perhaps 

 thousands of miles. 



The coast and its beach, as the whole country to the rocks inland, 

 is everywhere low and sandy. On the beach itself the sand is dense 

 and very fine. Farther in shore there is a very scant, occasional 

 streak of low vegetation where are pastured a few heads of cattle 

 and goats that graze on the lawns, here and there, where they can 

 find food. A few acres of good grass are fenced in, and this sup- 

 plies an excellent feed for the animals during the winter, which 

 here is neither so long nor so severe as is usually the case farther 

 north, at Bonne Esperance even. From Mingan west to Long 

 Point, a distance of about six miles, this low sand beach extends 

 almost without a single rock, I believe, while the east beach is en- 

 tirely of sand. The river itself passes through a ridge of this same 

 material which forms a high bank on the left and a low one on the 

 right, as one passes inland, while the whole land rises directly from 

 the sea then falls in a northeasterly direction, and the trend of 

 greatest height, here, as nearly everywhere along this part of the 

 coast, is in a northwesterly direction. In the background, the dis- 

 tant hills rise to a height of at least a thousand feet, while dim out- 

 lines of others, of perhaps greater height, appear in the horizon. 

 This is the picture whose charming outline at once attracts and 

 captivates one upon entering the harbor of this sequestered little 

 spot. Exhilarated by the sharp, fresh air we land, and soon count 

 our trout from the waters where few but the Indians have preceded 

 us. 



Mingan has been for many years a post of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company. Thither the Indians from the interior resort to sell their 

 furs, for which they receive in exchange provision, clothing, ammu- 

 nition, and those useful articles of which they may be in need. 



