78 HUNTING CAMPS. 



Hopedale. Among the huts some of the dogs were 

 howling, a flock of gulls circled screaming on the shore, 

 and from the cemetery came the sound of singing. 

 The detached syllables, strange to a European ear, 

 blended oddly with a tune that one has heard in a 

 hundred churches, floated back on the frosty air. 



At last one day, having set an Eskimo to watch for 

 the mail-boat's coming, I, accompanied by one or two 

 of the Moravians, set out, hoping to add some grouse 

 to our bill of fare. As we returned with three birds 

 in the evening we found our sentinel happily asleep 

 in the icy wind and the Virginia Lake steaming up the 

 channel and about to lie-to in the fiord-like bay. 



Within a week we disembarked at St. John's. 



Finally, a word or two about the caribou of Labrador 

 may perhaps not be out of place. The only certain 

 information that I was able to gather was as follows : 

 In the southern parts the woodland caribou has been 

 practically exterminated, though all over the country 

 they may still be met with in very small numbers. 

 The Hubbard expedition, 1903, which spent over three 

 months in the interior, killed but one stag, and it is 

 probable that these animals have been so thinned out 

 as to make an expedition in pursuit of them hardly 

 worth the time, trouble, and expense it would entail. 



With regard to the Barrenground caribou the case is 

 different. I was told that in some years the herds fail 

 to make their usual November migration to the coast, 

 and in other years when they do migrate they appear in 

 diminished numbers. Also they do not each season 

 visit the same spots on the coast, but come out to the 

 salt water at points far distant from each other ; for 

 instance, Sam Broomfield has shot but few deer lately, 



