58 CAPTAIN CARTWRIGHT'S 



pie ushered in Christmas, according to the New- 

 foundland custom. In the first place, they built 

 up a prodigious large fire in their house ; all hands 

 then assembled before the door, and one of them 

 fired a gun, loaded with powder only; afterwards 

 each of them drank a dram of rum; concluding the 

 ceremony with three cheers. These formalities 

 being performed with great solemnity, they re- 

 tired into their house, got drunk as fast as they 

 could, and spent the whole night in drinking, quar- 

 relling, and fighting. It is but natural to suppose, 

 that the noise which they made (their house being 

 but six feet from the head of my bed) together 

 with the apprehension of seeing my house in 

 flames, prevented me from once closing my eyes. 

 This is an intolerable custom; but as it has pre- 

 vailed from time immemorial, it must be submitted 

 to. By some accident my thermometer got broke. 



Tuesday, December 25, 1770. The people were 

 all drunk, quarrelling, and fighting all day. It 

 snowed early in the morning, the forenoon was 

 dull, and the rest of the day clear, with hard frost. 



Sunday, December^ 30, 1770. After breakfast I 

 took Ned with me and intended to walk down to 

 Eyre Island; but, near Barred Island, coming 

 upon the fresh slot of fifteen deer, leading towards 

 Punt Pond, we followed them. On one of the small 

 ponds we met with the tracks of four stout wolves,* 



* Gray wolf, called also timber wolf, Cams occidentalis. The resem- 

 blance between the Eskimo dog of the Eastern Labrador coast and this 

 wolf is very striking. '^Hiile the wolf, however, carries its tail out behind, 

 the 'Eskimo dog generally curls it up over its back. The wolf of Europe 

 is by some considered the same as the American gray wolf. 



