O NATURE IN ACADIE. 



pine stumps stand out grim and hoary, marking where 

 the destroying axe has been at work. The forests of 

 the island appear to be chiefly coniferous, and on the 

 coast the trees do not attain to any considerable size, 

 although there is a luxuriant undergrowth. In the 

 great unexplored interior, however, are many tracts of 

 forest and also some very extensive lakes. 



A melancholy history attaches to the former natives 

 of Newfoundland, for of the once numerous and power- 

 ful race of aborigines throughout the length and breadth 

 of this great country, not one remains. The colony of 

 Indians on the west coast of the island belong to the 

 Mic-Mac tribe, to whose persecution, added to that of 

 the dreaded paleface, the extinction of the Beoths 

 was due. Early in the present century proclamations 

 protecting the Beoths, as these aborigines called 

 themselves, were issued by the British Government, 

 but as usual they came too late, for a very few 

 years after saw the final extinction of these ill-fated 

 people. Rumour, indeed, has it, that the last of the 

 Beoths, a mere handful, passed across the Strait of Belle 

 Isle in two canoes early in the present century, and 

 landing on the opposite coast of Labrador, disappeared. 



We left St. John's about noon on Tuesday, and during 

 the remainder of the day were skirting the coast of 

 Newfoundland in a southerly direction. I observed a 

 fair number of seabirds of different kinds, including a 

 number of my recent acquaintances, the kittiwakes, and 

 also several great skuas. 



We passed the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 during the night of October 14, and all the next morning 

 were steaming down the coast of Nova Scotia, within 

 twelve or fifteen miles of land, and with the surface of 

 the water almost unruffled, so delightful was the day. 

 The coast presents an almost unbroken line, dipping 

 here and there into a valley where some little river 

 enters the sea, and dotted at frequent intervals with 

 tiny white houses, succeeded perhaps by scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable fields or wooded and sterile hills, with here 

 and there a church spire rising in the distance. On 



