360 CAPTAIN CARTWRIGHT'S 



extent of that fertility was confined to those 

 places on which fish had formerly been cured; 

 some small degree of verdure appeared on the 

 adjoining land, which I knew must have been 

 trampled on; but beyond that, the earth exhib- 

 ited its original barren state. I was consequently 

 led into a belief, that the brine, which drained out 

 of the fish when they were first spread, was the 

 cause of so great an alteration: and I was con- 

 firmed in this opinion, on my arrival at Conch; 

 where I found but few of the former fishing-rooms 

 occupied, and all the rest bearing a burden of fine 

 grass, which would not have disgraced the best 

 meadows in England; while the surrounding land 

 still remained as barren, as any other parts of 

 the island. 



All the old encampments of the Esquimaux, 

 point themselves out to you on sailing along the 

 shore. And the south-west point of Great Island, 

 on which I had a cod-fishery for three successive 

 summers, is now covered with grass, where noth- 

 ing but heath formerly grew. 



My garden in Isthmus Bay, which the reader 

 would observe, produced excellent crops the first 

 year, by being manured with sea-weed and offals 

 of fish; and also by mixing a greater portion of 

 the barren sand that lay underneath, among the 

 peat soil on the surface, it has since, I have been 

 informed, brought every thing to a degree of per- 

 fection, which had never been seen in that part 

 of the world, in any former year. 



Hence it appears to me, that nothing can so 



