Newfoundland 



spying the district thoroughly. I had a first- 

 class pair of binoculars with a very large field, 

 which made excellent stalking-glasses, and which 

 Johnny Peters evidently envied, for although he 

 was given to saying very little, it was plain to 

 me, that if, perchance, I were to lose them and 

 he were lucky enough to find them, he would 

 have valued highly his acquisition. 



We had been sitting in this place for some ten 

 minutes when Johnny gave a sort of grunt, 

 whilst he continued to stare at a spot on the 

 very far side of the barren we were on. At last 

 he muttered " Caribou ! " pointing out where 

 he had seen them. Look as I might, and I 

 tried with every nerve in my eyes to pick them 

 up, I could discover nothing. Johnny said they 

 must have moved into a hollow part of the 

 ground, where they would be out of sight. 

 They were too far off to tell whether a stag was 

 with the party of four, so we started off to 

 where they had disappeared. This took us far 

 longer than I had anticipated, and we must 

 have walked a distance of three miles. The 

 going over these barrens is very heavy, consisting 

 as they do of very wet, soft, spongy moss into 

 which you sink almost to your ankles at every 

 step. Where the ground is somewhat higher 

 there up crops the grey, short-growing lichen, on 

 which the caribou feed, lichen very similar in 

 appearance to that which grows on the boles and 



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