AN UNHUNTED COUNTRY. 117 



averred that except for them the country 

 immediately to the south and west of St. John's 

 Lake had never been hunted. Nor had it been 

 even visited except by Mr. Howley — a surveyor 

 in the employment of the Government of New- 

 foundland — and a lumbering party in search of 

 timber who had spent a winter half-way between 

 St. John's Lake and Mollj^gojack in 1898. 



Certainly all the caribou I saw during the 

 next few days were very tame, and showed so 

 little fear at the sight of myself and my com- 

 panions that we may well have been the first 

 human beings they had ever seen. 



When we were entering the mouth of the river 

 and paddling up to the camping place I have just 

 described there was a single caribou doe stand- 

 ing on the shore, which seemed so interested 

 in the unwonted sight of our canoes that it 

 would not move until we had landed within 

 seventy yards of it. Then, as Ave advanced 

 towards it, it trotted slowly away, but halted 

 and turned to stare at us again and again before 

 finally entering the forest. A number of 

 Canadian geese and black ducks which had 



