THE LABRADOR JOURNAL 



411 



to X600. He will not trade with the Indians, of whom we 

 saw about twenty, of the Montagnais tribes, and employs 

 only white serving-men. His Seal-oil tubs were full, and 

 he was then engaged in loading two schooners for Quebec 

 with that article. I bought from him the skin of a Cross 

 Fox for three dollars. He complained of the American 

 fishermen very much, told us they often acted as badly as 

 pirates towards the Indians, the white settlers, and the 

 eggers, all of whom have been more than once obliged to 

 retaliate, when bloody encounters have been the result. 

 He assured me he had seen a fisherman's crew kill thou- 

 sands of Guillemots in the course of a day, pluck the 

 feathers from the breasts, and throw the bodies into the 

 sea. He also told me that during mild winters his little 

 harbor is covered with pure white Gulls (the Silvery), but 

 that all leave at the first appearance of spring. The 

 travelling here is effected altogether on the snow-covered 

 ice, by means of sledges and Esquimaux dogs, of which 

 Mr. Robertson keeps a famous pack. With them, at the 

 rate of about six miles an hour, he proceeds to Bras d'Or 

 seventy-five miles, with his wife and six children, in one 

 sledge drawn by ten dogs. Fifteen miles north of this 

 place, he says, begins a lake represented by the Indians 

 as four hundred miles long by one hundred broad. This 

 sea-like lake is at times as rough as the ocean in a storm ; 

 it abounds with Wild Geese, and the water-fowl breed 

 on its margins by millions. We have had a fine day, but 

 very windy; Mr. R. says this July has been a remarkable 

 one for rough weather. The Caribou flies have driven 

 the hunters on board ; Tom Lincoln, who is especially 

 attacked by them, was actually covered with blood, and 

 looked as if he had had a gouging fight with some rough 

 Kentuckians. Mr. R.'s newspapers tell of the ravages of 

 cholera in the south and west, of the indisposition of 

 General Jackson at the Tremont House, Boston, etc. ; thus 

 even here the news circulates now and then. The mos- 



