38 THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



does not give up the ghost easily, but will, unless struck in a 

 vital part, dive, and often several charges will have to be 

 pumped into it before it can be captured. On the wing, it 

 flies rapidly, but low and straight. From behind a ledge in a 

 neighborhood where these birds congregate, one can get excel- 

 lent wing-shooting. Later on, we came across numbers of 

 guillemot along the fiords of Greenland. 



Once in a while in the winter a polar bear comes floating 

 down to Cape Charles, and is sure to be given a warm recep- 

 tion. A splendid specimen kindly brought his skin down 

 with him and left it on the Labrador coast in the winter of 

 1894. The entire male population turned out to greet him, 

 and it was not long before poor bruin was overtaken, flounder- 

 ing about helplessly in the snow, and he was easily induced 

 to part with his hide. Dr. Cook purchased the skin from one 

 of the fishermen, and it is now hanging up in the fore-cabin 

 of the Miranda, very safe from rats, but perhaps food for fishes. 



Battle Harbor lies across the bay from Cape Charles, a dis- 

 tance of five or six miles. I could never get a satisfactory 

 explanation of why it was called Battle Harbor, for several 

 old inhabitants whom I interviewed all had different stories 

 to tell, although they all agreed that a battle had been fought 

 there in very early times. Some said the battle was between 

 the English and Eskimos, others between the English and In- 

 dians, and still others held that the battle was fought between 

 Indians and Eskimos. The settlement is a very important 

 place, viewed from the Labrador standpoint ; it contains 

 about fifty houses, and a mail steamer calls every fortnight 

 during the summer from St. Johns, Newfoundland. Like 

 most of the Labrador settlements, its population consists 

 principally of dogs. There are at least a dozen dogs to each 

 family, and one cannot enter a house without walking over a 

 number of them. Luckily, they are good-natured and kindly 

 disposed toward strangers, as are their masters. We made up 



