264 INDIAN SETTLEMENTS. 



here being a post of the Hudson's bay company here also, 

 though at the extreme point of the mainland on the east side of the 

 channel. Their settlement here is entirely by mishwaps arranged 

 for temporary accommodations only during the summer months, 

 and rarely more than fifty families and two hundred people, old and 

 young, assemble here from their inland excursions to sell their furs 

 and to recuperate. Musquarro, though formerly a great Indian 

 rendezvous, has now become deserted for Romaine or Olomano- 

 sheebo, which is really a most delightful and picturesque place, — 

 at least so it seemed to me as we entered its snug and quiet harbor 

 one beautiful evening, and viewed it with the lights and shadows of 

 the sun's last rays upon it. Romaine river is now a great highway 

 for the Indians who visit the interior or those who descend to the 

 seacoast. 



St. Augustine, about thirty miles to the westward of Bonne Esper- 

 ance, was formerly the great resort of the Nascopie Indians. Here 

 for a long time the Hudson's Bay Company kept a flourishing post, 

 which was afterwards deserted by them, and a generous, honest 

 dweller of that region was allowed to take possession of it, 

 who now suppKes the Indians who come from the interior, to this, 

 the only post of the region, for a distance of many miles in either 

 direction. Many of the Indians wintering here came directly 

 across the country even from Ungava? and the shores of Hudson's 

 Bay itself. About 1871 there were as many as one hundred and 

 twenty families of Nascopies at this place, with about a third as 

 many Montagnais ; the two elements are so intermingled now that 

 the numbers are pretty evenly divided between the two tribes. It 

 has been said of the Nascopies in general, that "although intelligent 

 they are yet very superstitious, believe in dreams, in their 'jong- 

 leurs,' or medicine-men," etc. Of late years the Indians have en- 

 camped largely in the islands and mainland near Bonne Esperance 

 where Mr. Whiteley and others furnish them with supplies to con- 

 tinue their hunting and trapping in the interior the following winter. 

 There are thus about three hundred and seventy-five families, and 

 1,700 people leading a nomadic existence, and dwelling about and 



