THE LABRADOR TABLE-LAND. II 



Moisie, and also, probably, the Esquimaux as well as 

 Hamilton rivers take their rise : " It is pre-eminently 

 sterile, and where the country is not burned, caribou 

 moss covers the rocks, with stunted spruce, birch, and 

 aspen in the hollows and deep ravines. The whole of 

 the table-land is strewed with an infinite number of boul- 

 ders, sometimes three and four deep ; these singular 

 erratics are perched on the summit of every mountain 

 and hill, often on the edges of cliffs ; and they vary in 

 size from one foot to twenty in diameter. Language 

 fails to depict the awful desolation of the table-land of 

 the Labrador peninsula." This table-land or water-shed 

 is probably more or less parallel to the Strait of Belle 

 Isle, and situated between lOO and 150 miles inland. 

 It probably terminates to the northeast in the Mealy 

 Mountains. Numerous rivers descend the steep south- 

 ern slope into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Of these the 

 Moisie and Esquimaux rivers are the largest. They are 

 supposed to arise fi:om a chain of lakes on the summit 

 of the water-shed, which also gives rise to the Kenamou 

 River. 



The Moisie River forms part of the St. Lawrence River 

 system. It is 250 miles long, and flows south, empty- 

 ing into that river near the Bay of Seven Islands, at a 

 point west of Anticosti and opposite the northern shore 

 of the Gaspe Peninsula. From this point the streams 

 running into the Gulf assume, the further we go east, a 

 N. W. and S. E. direction. Such is that of the Meshi- 

 kumau or Esquimaux River, which empties into the 

 ■western mouth of the Strait of Belle Isle, at the lower 

 Caribou Island. This stream is about 250 miles long, as 

 I learned from residents, and is only navigable for about 



