I90 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



concenlrated in Canadian hands. But the destinies of New- 

 foundland are little influenced by terrestrial considerations. 

 World-wide tendencies are sweeping scattered units into large 

 compact masses; but Newfoundland is old, very old as 

 colonies go, has been during its long life impervious to world- 

 wide tendencies, and has been living its own life, in its own 

 way, which is not the way of other states or colonies. 

 All the This chapter might be entitled Much Ado About Little, for 



matters Newfoundland from within only reveals a fraction of its 

 discussedin nature. Its heart is on its outside ; there its pulse beats, and 

 kavem- ^^ whatever is alive inside its exoskeleton is alive by accident. 

 /licenced The sea clothes the island as with a garment, and that 

 landbut^' garment contains the vital principle and soul of the national 

 little. life of Newfoundland. With the Greeks, Ocean was a synonym 



for barrenness, land alone being lifegiving, and the thankless 

 task of ploughing the sands between land and ocean brought 

 but scanty profit to Faust himself To the Newfoundlander 

 the land is a forest or a ' barren ', the ocean a mine or harvest- 

 field, and on the foreshore the yield of the ocean is prepared 

 for market. Briefly, this chapter is unreal and unilluminating 

 because it has totally abstained, and probably it is the only 

 chapter in any book on Newfoundland, which has totally 

 abstained, from the word which heads the next chapter. 



^ Authorities 



(i) Official 



Reports from Governors and Correspondence with Governors, 

 amongst which the following may be mentioned : 



Sir J. Gaspard Le Marchant, Report, 1847-8, vol. xlvi, p. 24; Sir 

 Antony Musgrave, Report, 1867-8, vol. xlviii, p. 121 (No. 3995); 

 Sir Stephen J. Hill, Report, 1872, vol. xlii, p. 344 (c. 617); Report, 

 1873, vol. xlviii, p. 303 (c. 709 1) ; Sir John H. Glover, 1878-9, vol. 1, 

 p. II (c. 2273) ; Sir Herbert Murray, 1896, vol. Ivii, p. 627 (c. 8189) ; 

 Sir William MacGregor, 1908, Report on Micmac Indians (cd. 4197). 



