PROGRESS BY LAND, 1818-191O 169 



coast. English colonists went from all these bays to all these dy sea, 

 bays, but always by salt water and round the coast ; so that ^l^J^^'^f ^ 

 English progress outside the Peninsula of Avalon was ex- 

 clusively marine. Micmac methods of progression in the 

 same region were by rivers and lakes, exclusively inland, and, 

 in early times, when the Beothics held the centre, almost as 

 circuitous as English methods. Cormack's discovery was 

 that the Micmacs had so completely monopolized, and 

 Englishmen had so completely eschewed fresh water and land, 

 that Englishmen, as they revolved in the outer circle, were in 

 complete ignorance of the Micmacs, who were revolving in an 

 inner circle. And yet ' overlanding ' is an essentially English 

 instinct, and it would seem odd to find Londoners who thought 

 that their only way to Bristol or Liverpool was by sea. 



On the other hand, there was a difference between the ^'^^^ ^^<^- 

 overlanding of the Micmacs in Newfoundland and the travelled 

 overlanding of the English colonists in other climes. English /^^ ^^^^''^ 

 overlandmg always meant the creation and mamtenance o\ purposes 

 land-links between the extremities ; Indians invariably kept ^'^^ ^P^''^- 

 the interval empty. The English process led to progress and 

 fullness ; the Indian process led to stagnation and inanition, 

 for Diana, whom the Indians worship under another name, is 

 not the goddess of population. Consequently in 1822, 150 

 Micmacs and a few dying Beothics filled all that part of 

 Newfoundland, which does not consist of peninsula and 

 coast-line ; in 1842 there were no Beothics, the Micmacs were 

 200,^ and but for them the body of Newfoundland was like 

 an empty skin; in 1872 the Micmacs were under 200 ;2 and 

 less than 200 Micmacs, along with rail way men and lumber- 

 men still occupy — or rather pervade — the land. But for them 

 the frame is without a picture. Indian colonization is the 

 antithesis of solid progress, and like some gas keeps small 

 particles of itself in vast spaces for centuries at a time. 



1 Sir R. Bonnycastle, op. ciL, vol. ii, p. 244. 



2 Sir S. Hill, Report, 1872, p. 47. 



