IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



... Et en somme ie pense que ceste terre est 

 celle que Dieu donna k Cain," '■ 



After we had passed the rapid at the outlet 

 of Shecatica Inlet, the shores widened and we 

 sailed as in a rock-bound lake surrounded by 

 miniature mountains. Little brooks glided 

 tranquilly down over smooth rocks or tumbled 

 and boiled out of chasms. There were small 

 sandy beaches and pockets of forests in pro- 

 tected gullies. Again the water narrowed ahead 

 of us and we entered the "second rapids" to 

 emerge into another and larger basin over two 

 miles in diameter. 



"The mountains opened wide on either hand, 

 And lo ! amid those labyrinths of stone 

 The sea had got entangled in the land, 

 And turned and twisted, struggling to get free, 

 And be once more the immeasurable sea." 



' " Two leagues farther on there is another good river still 

 larger, in which we caught a great many salmon, and we called 

 it the St. James River: . . . We put into another harbor farther 

 west and about a league beyond the aforesaid St. James River, 

 which I judge to be one of the best harbors in the world, and 

 which was named Jacques Cartier Harbor. If the land cor- 

 responded to the excellence of the harbors, it would be a great 

 blessing, but one ought not to call it land at all, but rather 

 pebbles and savage rocks and places fit for wild iDeasts, inas- 

 much as in all the land towards the north I saw not so much 

 as a cartload of earth. . . . And, in fine, I think that land is 

 the land that God gave to Cain." 



192 



