CHAPTER VIII 



PEOGKESS BY LAND DUKING THE LAST 

 PEKIOD, 1818-1910 



At the beginning of this period Newfoundland, with the Cormack 

 exception of the Peninsula of Avalon, must have seemed to its ^J^/-^^,;^. 

 inhabitants a husk without a kernel. Midnight wrapt once Imtd, 1822, 

 more the mysterious country, on which the Cartwrights had 

 shed a momentary ray of light. The Peninsula of Avalon 

 was already known from end to end, but outside Avalon 

 nothing was known of the inner world, except what could be 

 seen from the sea or from the Lower Exploits River, or what 

 the Cartwrights were rumoured to have seen when they peeped 

 behind the veil. So in 1822 W. E. Cormack, fresh from his 

 new-made colony at New Glasgow, in Prince Edward Island, 

 resolved to take a new prolonged look behind the veil and to 

 make a final exploration of the unknown interior. He had 

 heard that some of the rivers which flowed south were short 

 and steep, and that the Exploits River, which flowed north- 

 east, was gradual and long j he had seen the charts ; and he 

 inferred from these meagre data that an open, high, and dry 

 route would be found along a line to the north of the southerly, 

 and to the south of the north-easterly rivers ; so he started 

 with knapsack and rifle from Smith's Sound, near Random 

 Island, in Trinity Bay, and after nine weeks' tramp emerged 

 in St. George Bay, 210 miles due west of his starting-point. 

 His was the first long walk in Newfoundland, and it was almost 

 the last. It seemed to prove nothing and to lead to nothing. 

 It was wholly unlike anything that had hitherto occurred in 

 the colony, and men had to think long before they could 

 quite make out what they had learned from it. The only 

 thing that was clear was that they had learned a very barren 

 geographical lesson about a very barren region. 



