26 AN ESKIMO VILLAGE 



sailed from London on that bright May morning in 

 the year 1752. 



And the four who waved from the deck ? They 

 were the four young men who had come forward as 

 volunteers to be the first missionaries to the Eskimos 

 of Labrador. 



Their great adventure had begun. 



If you have crossed the North Atlantic Ocean, 

 and particularly if you have made that crossing in a 

 small ship, you may have some idea, perhaps, of the 

 experiences of those four young men. 



Myself, I have made the passage in the Harmony, 

 a tiny ship of two hundred and twenty tons, and have 

 spent three-and-twenty days upon the way, and have 

 known what it means to be storm-tossed and weary, 

 and day by day to see nothing but tumbling waters 

 high as houses, and to lie awake at night and listen 

 to the weird cries of the sailors as they hauled upon 

 the ropes. I thought it long that I should be three- 

 and-twenty days upon the sea, but the Hope was 

 only a little schooner, and it was on the i ith of July, 

 all but eight weeks after leaving London, that the 

 coast of Labrador was sighted. Eight weeks of the 

 trackless ocean, with sometimes storm and tossing, 

 and sometimes, maybe, anxiety and peril ! Can you 

 wonder that those four young men were glad to see 

 the bleak and rocky land ? 



On the 31st of July the schooner came to anchor 

 in a sheltered cove ; high hills, patched with snow 

 on their upper slopes, rose to west and north. The 

 lower hillsides were green with grass and trees, and, 

 best of all, the beach showed marks of camping- 



