CHAPTER XII 



DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF THE GANDER AND 

 INCIDENTS OF STILL-HUNTING IN THE TIMBER 



Nothing in the universe is so attractive as the unknown. 

 To the man of imagination it is the great magnet which 

 draws him away to seek fresh worlds to conquer. There 

 is in the very sound of the word that hidden mystery that 

 "tinges the sober aspect of the present with colour of 

 romance," and no one, however dull, is ever quite romance 

 proof. In consequence, men rush wildly at the North Pole and 

 after other unconquered fields, although the results achieved 

 are often out of all proportion to the labour involved. 



It may seem strange to the reader that there should still 

 be unexplored districts in a small island like Newfoundland 

 which has so long been a British colony, and yet it is a 

 fact that out of a total area of 42,000 square miles, at least 

 two-thirds of the country is still as little known as it was 

 when John Cabot landed. The island has an entire length 

 of 317 miles and a breadth of 315 miles; but, broadly speak- 

 ing, all that is known of the interior is a five-mile strip from 

 the coast where its population of 250,000 dwells, and the 

 main waterways which have been principally mapped by 

 Murray and Howley since the year 1870. The reason of 

 this want of knowledge is easily explained. Horses cannot 

 go far in because there is no grass except on a few of the 

 more slow-moving rivers, and men can only carry on their 

 backs supplies for a short journey. But the principal reason, 



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