42 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



return to St. Johns, Newfoundland, for more permanent 

 repairs. Temporary repairs had been completed, but as there 

 were no extra plates on board, nor any way of procuring such, 

 the engineers had cut a plate from the iron protection sur- 

 rounding the forward hatch, between the upper and main 

 decks ; but as tools were lacking to cut this plate properly, it 

 so covered the hawser pipe as to render the starboard anchor 

 unavailable. Therefore, Captain Farrell deemed it unsafe to 

 proceed northward, and theie was nothing to be done but to 

 beat a retreat 'to St. Johns and remain there until satisfactory 

 repairs could be completed. This was very discouraging to 

 all ; but we had to bow to the inevitable. 



Five of our party had already made up their minds to give 

 up the trip, and had started on a hunting jaunt toward the 

 interior of Labrador. These were the Messrs. C. P. and 

 T. J. Lineaweaver, and R. DeP. Tytns, of Yale College ; 

 Walter S. Root, of Cleveland, Ohio, and S. G. Tenney, of Wil- 

 liamstown, Mass. The party camped in the Labrador woods 

 for seventeen days, and enjoyed excellent sport both with gun 

 and rod. They captured one bear and several lynxes, and 

 shot great quantities of grouse and other small game. One 

 of the party, Mr. Tytus, had quite an experience with a lynx. 

 He shot it and thought that it was dead, but on approaching 

 the supposed corpse the lynx suddenly sprang upon him and tore 

 his clothes to shreds before it received its final coup de grace. 

 On their return along the coast the party shot a number of 

 seal and guillemots. In the Labrador streams they found 

 trout and salmon, — trout exceedingly plentiful, — and caught 

 them in such quantities that, as one of the party said to me 

 on a chance meeting in New York, " AVe are afraid to talk in 

 figures — everybody would think we were simply telling fish 

 stories." 



One discomfort of the short summer season in Labrador 

 is the extraordinary variations of temperature. The party 



