Whale Fishers. 



337 



them. Some one said, it is rum which is destroying the 

 poor Indians. I repHed, I think not, they are disappear- 

 ing here from insufficiency of food and physical comforts, 

 and the loss of all hope, as he loses sight of all that was 

 abundant before the white man came, intruded on his 

 land, and his herds of wild animals, and deprived him of 

 the furs with which he clothed himself. Nature herself 

 is perishing. Labrador must shortly be depopulated, not 

 only of her aboriginal men, but of every thing and ani- 

 mal which has life, and attracts the cupidity of men. 

 When her fish, and game, and birds are gone, she will be 

 left alone like an old worn-out field." 



" y^u/y 2 2. This morning Captain Bayfield and his 

 officers came alongside to bid us good-bye, to pursue their 

 labors further westward. After breakfast we manned 

 three boats, and went to explore a small harbor about 

 one mile east of our anchorage. There we found a whal- 

 ing schooner, fifty-five tons burthen, from Cape Gaspe. 

 We found the men employed in boiling blubber in a large 

 iron vessel like a sugar-boiler. The blubber lay in heaps 

 on the shore, in junks of six or eight pounds each, look- 

 ing filthy enough. The captain or owner of the vessel 

 appeared to be a good sensible man of his class, and cut 

 off for me some strips of the whale's skin from under the 

 throat, with large and curious barnacles attached to the 

 skin. They had struck four whales, and three had sunk, 

 and were lost to them. This, the men said, was a very 

 rare occurrence. We found, also, at this place, a French 

 Canadian seal-catcher, from whom I gathered the follow- 

 ing information. 



" This portion of Labrador is free to any one to settle 

 on, and he and another person had erected a cabin^ and 

 had nets and traps to catch seals and foxes, and guns to 

 shoot bears and wolves. They take their quarry to Que- 

 bec, receiving fifty cents a gallon for seal oil, and from 

 15 



