FISH 20 1 



were those who had been left behind upon the shore Hke 

 driftwood or seaweed by the receding tide of summer fisher- 

 men, and represented Jersey, especially near the frontier of 

 Quebec Province,^ Poole, London,^ and Torquay,^ as well as 

 Conception Bay and Twillingate. In 1826 the northern 

 limit of the summer fishery was Indian Harbour, near 

 Sandwich Bay,*; in 1848 Cape Webeck,^ north of Hamilton 

 Inlet; in 1883, thanks to steamers, it was Nachvak,^ and in 

 1892 Cape Chudleigh, at the mouth of Hudson StraitJ 

 The inhabitants, who are few in comparison to the vagrants, 

 number about 4,000, and are very scattered and mostly 

 males. Primitive hospitals established by the Deep Sea 

 Mission at Indian and Battle Harbours connect the settlers 

 with one another in time of trouble and with Newfoundland, 

 in the north of which St. Anthony is the mission centre. 

 Land, which consists of ' rocks of every conceivable variety 

 of shape and outline, but all without exception present- 

 ing no shapes of life or vegetation beyond a rough spongy 

 moss, with occasionally low berry-bearing shrubs ' ,^ does 

 not attract women, as Pastor Brand discovered, and in 

 1848 there was only one white woman between Battle 

 Harbour '-* and Sandwich Bay, which was then the northern- 

 most settlement.^" But the statistics, except of the cod-fishery, 

 are not trustworthy; for how could a census be taken except 

 in an electoral district? and the figures of the cod-fishery 

 bring back reminiscences of old Newfoundland with a vivid- 

 ness which is almost uncanny. Thus the first accurate 

 statistics of the seventeenth century put the yield of New- 

 foundland cod in one year (1677) at 221,000 quintals, and 



1 e. g. De Quetteville and Boulettier. 

 ^ e. g. Hunt and Henley. ^ e, g. Stabb. 



* Sir W. MacGregor, Reports on ... Labrador, 1905-8, p. 128. 

 Lat. 54° c. 5 Lat. 55° c. See Church in the Colonies, No. 31, p. 67. 

 « Lat. 59° c. ' Lat. 6oi° c. 



^ Church in the Colonies^ No. 30, p. 38, and No. 19, passim. 

 » Lat. 52|° c. 10 Lat. 53!° c. 



