FIRST SIGHT OF LABRADOR 



after a journey across the Atlantic in a 222-tons 

 barque, in the teeth of what the captain rather 

 flatteringly called head-winds, but which turned out 

 to be the equinoctial gales. 



I looked on the land with a strange sense of 

 expectancy ; and then there came to me the feeling 

 that has come to others, the feeling that there was 

 something away behind it all. It was awfully de- 

 pressing in itself; but to me it seemed like a veil 

 that might lift and disclose a vision of hope. 



I know that in summer the scene is brighter 

 a picture of bold cliffs and headlands ; of long fiords 

 with rocky walls all patched with white and green, 

 where the snow lies unmelted in the shade and the 

 scrubby brushwood flourishes in the sunshine ; of 

 stretches of grey moss, and splodges of vivid colour 

 where the wild flowers have got a hold ; of distant 

 heights, snow-capped, sharply focussed in the clear 

 air; of blue waters dancing in the sunshine but 

 I like to think of Labrador as I saw it on that 

 October morning; bleak and silent, lapped by a 

 leaden sea, but giving all the time that charming 

 hint of something to be sought, something to live 

 for. All day long we steamed past bare black rocks, 

 and night fell upon the same grim scenery : this 

 was Labrador. 



In the morning we were at anchor off Ramah, 

 in a deep little harbour among the hills. The 

 solitary missionary was in transports of delight. " I 

 had almost given you up," he said, "you are so 

 late " : and he went on to tell us how only the night 

 before he had told two men to make ready to tramp 

 over the hills to Hebron, seventy miles away, to ask 

 for news and stores. 



While we were chatting, two Eskimos came in ; 



48 



