A SUMMER SAIL TO THE LABRADOR COAST 193 



the Montagnais Indians, who in the olden time lost no fitting oppor- 

 tunity for descending upon their coast settlements and engaging 

 in savage warfare. The Eskimo held their own fairly well until 

 the Indians were furnished with firearms by European adventurers, 

 who complained that the Eskimo robbed their fishing-stations 



DINNER-TIME. 



whenever they got the chance. Battle Harbour was the scene of 

 the last deadly conflict between these hereditary enemies. That 

 the fight was a sanguinary one is attested by the graves which are 

 strewn in profusion over the desolate headland. 



So striking are the ordinary natural features of the coast of the 

 peninsula of Labrador, so strange and unfamiliar are the sights and 

 scenes here surrounding the traveller at every turn, that even a 

 transient and marginal acquaintance rivets on the mind an 

 impression vivid and ineffaceable. 



The visitor in the first place is conscious of something like a 

 mental shock when his eyes rest upon the awful desolation of mile 

 after mile of dreary coast-line, of smooth sphinx-like headlands, and 

 bare wave-worn beetling rocks, at times carved into fantastic 

 shapes by the fierce assaults of frost, wave, and tempests. This 

 storm-scarred lofty coast he recognizes as the edge of an enormous 

 rugged tableland, of which little is known. A handful of explorers 

 of the vast waste which occupies the interior have described a 

 region whose sterility can scarce be equalled elsewhere in the wide 

 world. They tell us of countless shallow lake basins of every con- 

 ceivable shape and size, scooped by glacial action out of the ancient 

 rocks ; of turbulent mountain torrents, too impetuous even for the 



F.C. 



