ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 121 



in Fortune Bay in September 1906, and was there 

 met by Philip Ryan, who kept the store and tele- 

 graph office at the mouth of the Long Harbour and 

 traded with the Micmac Indians. 



Philip Ryan was a remarkable man in some ways. 

 He was the soul of geniality, and as active as a cat 

 despite his sixty years. In quite a big sea he 

 would climb up the mast to adjust his sails, and 

 handled his cutter, the Caribou, with great skill. 

 Being a thorough Irishman, all his tackle was rotten, 

 and how he had escaped with his life for so long in 

 the squalls of Fortune Bay was difficult to imagine. 

 He was the only man on the south coast the Indians 

 trusted, and it was through him I got my Indian 

 guides for this trip. 



After a rough and by no means safe voyage across 

 Fortune Bay, we reached Ryan's house at Long 

 Harbour, where I found one of my Indians. Ryan 

 lived alone in a two-storied wooden house, and the 

 whole place was one indescribable mass of stores, 

 furs, gunpowder, and truck of every description 

 piled in confusion in all the rooms. Everything 

 bespoke dirt and disorder, and the house did not 

 seem to have been swept out for years. About 

 11 p.m. Ryan conducted me upstairs to a large 

 bedroom and wished me good-night. Immediately 

 I entered the room I felt a deadly chill and sense 

 of unusual depression. Being a man of sanguine 

 temperament, the feeling was unusual, and dispens- 

 ing with a light I threw off most of my clothes and 

 jumped into a large bed, which seemed to be a litter 

 of clothes (unmade), and covered with what had 

 once been a whitish counterpane. 



It was a cold night with frost, and the moon shone 



