A FALL HUNTING TRIP. 89 



sportsmen, grumble, which is, after all, rather absurd, as 

 they always have the alternative of the express, which, 

 considering the route, is punctual and certainly most com- 

 fortable. It would be just as reasonable of a traveller in 

 England who, choosing a goods train, felt himself aggrieved 

 because it failed to run mile for mile with the Scotch Ex- 

 press. But it is the fashion to deride the accommodation ; 

 and what has justice to do with a time-honoured joke ? 



On reaching the station-house I turned into my sleeping 

 bag for what remained of the night, and woke to find it 

 raining. I went down through the rain to the banks of the 

 Terra Nova River. The dawn was full of the scent of wet 

 woods, for the wind was blowing across the water. To my 

 right the river, broad and peaceful, wound away under the 

 gaunt trestle bridge, between flat green country darkened 

 here and there with woodland ; to the west spread the 

 lake, dotted with rocks at the nearer end. It was pleasant 

 to stand there and think that to the westward lay the 

 centre of Newfoundland, where no man lived, and that, 

 although this is the oldest colony of Great Britain, it is 

 possible even to-day, within eight or ten days' travel of the 

 railway, to walk into almost unexplored country. 



The landscape is covered with a network of lakes, sur- 

 rounded in almost every instance by woods ; it is inter- 

 sected by marshes and broken by the knobs and ridges of 

 the barrens. These barrens show great spreads of sulphur- 

 coloured reindeer moss, and a loose scattering of trees, 

 which gather here and there into clumps, or " drogues/' of 

 spruce, of juniper, or of birch. Few people have invaded 

 these solitudes. Sportsmen camp there in the autumn, and 

 settlers from Alexander Bay, who come to collect their winter 

 store of meat ; but the latter, for reasons of easier transport, 

 keep as near to the railroad as possible. Prospectors for 

 timber and Indians have lit their fires in some of these wild 

 spots, but though the lumber camps are being pushed 



