208 CAPTAIN CARTWRIGHT'S 



Mountaineers came here in two canoes; tliere 

 were two men and their wives, a boy about sixteen 

 years old (a son of captain Jack's) and two small 

 children. They gave me four beaver-skins, and 

 afterwards stole them again and sold them to me. 

 They continued to drink brandy, of which they 

 were very greedy, until they were quite drunk, but 

 were not near so troublesome as captain Jack and 

 his family. 



Thursday, Septeynher 12, 1776. All this morn- 

 ing was spent in purchasing furs from the Indi- 

 ans; they had not much, but they sold them 

 cheaper than the others had done. They shewed 

 me their method of shooting deer; although they 

 were very drunk, yet they made several good 

 shots, which convinced me of their expertness.^ 



When a Mountaineer gets up to a herd of deer, 

 he puts three or four balls into his mouth; the 

 instant he has fired, he throws some loose powder 

 down his piece, drops a wet ball out of his mouth 

 upon it and presses it down with his ramrod, but 

 puts in no wadding, either upon the powder or 

 the ball; by which means he gets more shots than 

 if he loaded in the common way. As they use no 

 measure for their powder, but throw it in by hand, 

 the}^ generally over-charge; a spring-flask, with 

 a ball made up in a cartridge would be a much 

 better way, but those flasks come too high for the 



^ This adoption of fire-arms by the Indians earlier than by the Es- 

 kimos, and their evident skill in their use, may partly account for the 

 abandonment of southern Labrador by the latter people, although the 

 prime factor was of course the white race. Indians and Eskimos have 

 always been enemies. 



