The Labrador. 



30 



Straits, the ancient Laurentian gneiss hills rise in rugged declivities 

 two, three, and even four thousand feet above the level of the sea. 



The chief products are the cod, halibut, herring, salmon, trout, 

 seal, and fur-bearing animals. The coast is severely inhospitable. 

 Agriculture is not attempted, and only a limited extent of garden- 

 ing in turnips, lettuce, beets, potatoes, etc., is found possible. 

 Domestic animals, except dogs and wretched-looking goats, are not 

 kept. The dogs — miserable, snarling, yelping, haggard, wolf-like 

 brutes — are exceedingly valuable. They are to the settlers in 

 winter time all that horses are to the people of Canada, hauling 

 their sledges for hundreds of miles over rocks, ice, and mountains 

 from station to station, and the logs, from which boards are 

 whipped, from the interior down to the settlements on the coast. 



The population of the Labrador consists of fishermen, principally 

 Newfoundlanders, a few French Canadians, 

 Moravian Missionaries, Montaignais Indians 

 and Eskimos, and, of course, Indian and 

 Eskimo half-breeds. The number of in- 

 habitants varies according to the season. 

 During the fishing months there are gener- 

 ally scattered along the coast, in schooners, 

 on the islands, and at the stations, about 

 twenty thousand souls, while in winter this 



number dwindles down to less than five thousand. All yield a willing 

 obedience to the laws of Newfoundland, but, fortunately, they are 

 not over-governed. Once or sometimes twice during the year, a 

 judge, or marine justice, is sent out on ship-board. He makes a 

 judicial tour, so to speak, of the principal settlements, administering 

 such law and justice as the necessities of the people require. There 

 are no custom-houses on the coast, but the revenue-cutter appears 

 periodically. 



At some of the stations along the coast where a wretched white 

 population, employed only during the fishing season, remains during 

 the winter, there is much suffering and want. Sometimes the 

 people actually, or nearly, starve, especially when the fishery has 

 proved a failure. They insist upon establishing themselves on the 



THE COD— LABRADOR. 



