290 NEWFOUNDLAND 



whilst John was distinctly romantic, and went as far as to 

 hope for a new wife on whom he had already fixed his 

 affections somewhere down in Bale d'Espoir. Steve's wish 

 was realised, and mine too, in a measure, for the kindly 

 ghost, although he did not actually produce a fifty-pointer, 

 gave me what was probably the best head in Central New- 

 foundland, whilst from the last accounts I heard of John, he 

 was making the running at such a terrific pace that no girl, 

 however fastidious, was likely to withstand him. 



The view from the top of this beautiful mountain is one 

 of the best in Newfoundland. It was a clear day, and we 

 could see nearly seventy miles in every direction. It seems 

 as if a line had been drawn across the island, clearly cutting 

 off all the forest and marsh country to the north and west 

 from the bare and open stony hills of the south. To the 

 north and north-west was the long line of the Middle Ridge 

 clothed in a great sea of dense woods which stretch without 

 a break from Burnt Hill on the Gander to Glenwood, Terra- 

 Nova, and Cloete Sound to the east. Here and there dark 

 patches of the highest woods crop up round St. John's Lake and 

 N'Moochwaygodie (Bond's Lake), a large pond about five miles 

 to the west of St. John's Lake, and the last unvisited and 

 unmapped lake of any size in Eastern Newfoundland. About 

 fifteen miles to the north-east are two ranges of low hills, known 

 to the Indians as Smooth Ridge and Burnt Hills, and leading 

 up to these and connected also with Kagudeck is a brook 

 which passes through three small lakes which I have named 

 Steve Bernard's, John Hinx's, and John Stride's Ponds, the 

 last-named being the hunting-ground of the trapper of that 

 name. Due east, in the open country, is the large lake 

 known to the Indians as the (Eastern) Maelpeg (the lake of 

 many indentations). It has never been properly surveyed. 



