l62 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



as far as the mouth of the Exploits, in Notre Dame Bay, and 

 the mouths of lesser streams, which empty themselves into 

 Notre Dame Bay between the Exploits estuary and Hall Bay, 

 and which may in past ages have been subsidiary mouths of 

 the Exploits. They were river-spirits, and the river which they 

 haunted was the Exploits. They touched neither the western 

 nor the southern coast, nor even the feet of Petit Nord Pen- 

 insula. They were limited to a single river. Accordingly, 

 in 1828, CormackjOn renewing his quest, made straight for the 

 dwelling places of the Beothics — pack on back and rifle in 

 hand — searched the whole country between the Exploits 

 estuary and Hall Bay, between Hall Bay and Red Indian 

 Lake, and between Red Indian Lake and the estuary of the 

 Exploits, and searched in vain. The objects of his search 

 eluded his grasp, for they were all dead. He might as well 

 have searched for the ghosts of prehistoric man. There 

 never lived a man who more signally failed to do what he 

 wanted to do by travelling than Cormack. Nevertheless, 

 Cormack's geographical success was not without historical 

 result. 

 andhedis- While searching for Beothics he found Micmacs and made 

 ^^^^'^ an historical as well as an ethnological discovery. In 1822 

 andlearned his only companion was a Micmac, and to his amazement he 

 that their j^^j. ^^^ qj. ^^^^ parties of two or three Micmacs, who did 



hu7iting ^ 



territoiy not know a time when they or their forefathers did not know 



was dij- ^YiQ unknown district which he was traversing. There was 



tinct from ° 



that of the also a Montagnais Indian living in the western wilds, who had 



Beothics, come from Labrador and married a Micmac woman. Cor- 

 mack's historical discovery — unexpected by him and un- 

 suspected by historians — was that during a century or more, 

 while Englishmen were gazing out seawards with their backs 

 turned to the land, Micmacs with their backs turned towards 

 the sea were hurrying to and fro from end to end of the land 

 that lay south of Petit Nord — sometimes darting at, more often 

 eddying round and avoiding its centre — and unlocking its 



