1 84 A summer's cruise to northern LABRADOR. 



The whole of the 23d, which was cloudy and rainy^ 

 was spent in search of a pilot for Hopedale. A boat's 

 crew, myself included, rowed some seven or eight miles- 

 ' to Roger's Harbor, where in a quiet basin connected 

 with the sea by two narrow "tickles," were about fif- 

 teen vessels — schooners and barks. We went aboard 

 one, and it was indescribably filthy, above and below ; 

 from the cabin arose a dreadful stench ; the women 

 aboard, with one exception, harmonized in point of per- 

 sonal appearance with their surroundings. We asked 

 for a little saleratus, and were kindly given some made 

 from the spruce. 



This island is of syenite, its feldspar flesh-colored, and 

 the shore is in its scenic features like that of the rocks at 

 Nahant or Mt. Desert, with a few small beaches, the 

 slopes leading down to them of an intense green. The 

 cod had not yet " put in." Last year on the 26th they 

 took a hundred quintals the first day they appeared. 

 The fishermen talk discouragingly of this year's pros- 

 pects, and seem to be pushing " up to the nor'ard" 

 more rapidly than usual. In fact, for three years New- 

 foundland fishermen have gone for fish beyond the 

 Moravian settlement of Nain. Add to the lack of cod- 

 fish, the failure of the spring's "swile," " sile," or seal 

 fishery, and they were doomed to fare pretty hard that 

 winter. 



We found we had not gone far enough to find Tom 

 Bloomfield,* the man we were in search of, but were 

 near the house of Cole, a half-breed, part Englishman 

 and part. Eskimo, with an Eskimo wife and half-breed 



* See 21 on the map of Eskimo Bay. Cole's house is 22. 



