I 



A LAND OF ETERNAL WARRING 



685 



'0 



SKNDiNC SOUTH fishkrme:n wi^o have died at hospital 



It is the custom to preserve the bodies in salt when their own schooners call for them and 



carry them to their southern homes 



urally exist on the coast. In the space 

 at my command only one or two things, 

 however, are worth noting. There can 

 be little question that the polar bears, 

 together with other animals, like caribou, 

 and seals, and birds, possess a sense not 

 inherent with men, viz : a direction sense. 

 Whether it is magnetic or what, I do not 

 know, but I am convinced it exists. 



I have followed bear tracks for many 

 miles, both along the coast and inland, 

 and whether the course took him over 

 flat snow fields, large lakes, through 

 dense woods, or across wide arms of the 

 sea, he always kept going steadily north. 

 I refer now to stray bears that have fol- 

 lowed the whelping seals too far south 

 on the ice fields. 



I met a polar bear once in the open 

 Atlantic full three miles from the nearest 



land, just rolling lazily along north. If 

 there were anything to be said for the 

 evolutionary influences of natural selec- 

 tion, the polar bear should certainly be 

 as amphibious as the seal in the near 

 future. 



But I must leave the animal resources 

 of Labrador, and come to the vegetable 

 wealth — a source of wealth that is by no 

 means to be despised, as it is very easy to 

 show. The red partridge berry or small 

 cranberry, the blue hertz or bilberry, the 

 yellow bake-apple or cloud-berry, the 

 purple marsh-berry, with the red currant, 

 the raspberry, and gooseberry, are all 

 abundant, all easily preserved, and all 

 grow without any efifort on the part of 

 the natives to sow, cultivate, or in any 

 way improve them. 



Sweep up a barrel full of the cranber- 



