214 NEWFOUNDLAND 



strange to those that do not know them that the Indian, 

 who spends all his life in the woods, should dread bad 

 weather and hard work. But so it is. He will always stay 

 at home on a wet day, and fears to go abroad when changes 

 of temperature are going on. Joe, excellent fellow as he 

 was, cordially disliked getting wet, and the slightest chill or 

 illness gave him most gloomy forebodings. Nearly all Indians 

 are gluttons. Some can digest the enormous quantities of 

 fat they eat, and others get indigestion and are a prey to 

 melancholia. Joe was one of the latter, and when the results 

 of a too generous diet of deer fat were manifest, he would 

 come to us with a face of extreme woe. 



" What's the matter, Joe ? " we would say. 



" Ah, I have a lump like a lead ball just here," pressing 

 his diaphragm. " I am very bad. John Hans at Conn 

 River died of just such a thing last winter, and Joe Brazil 

 he " 



" Let's look at your tongue," I would say, with my best 

 Harley Street manner. " Yes, to be sure, a case of Asiatic 

 cholera ; don't you think so. Jack ? " 



McGaw, thus appealed to, would at once ratify my diagnosis 

 with a learned air, and go for the Burroughs & Wellcome 

 case. Two azure globules of the most body-rending descrip- 

 tion were then inserted in Joe's mouth, and next day he 

 would come up smiling. 



On another occasion the results of a generous diet had 

 a bad effect on poor Joe, and he was in considerable pain. 

 The doctors put their heads together, and more by good 

 luck than good management effected another speedy cure 

 with some horrible compound whose name we could not 

 read on the bottle. After this our fame was established. 



"You could make much money down at Conn River," 



