thousand square miles. It is fringed | sea-shell where all the glory of inefwith innumerable islands, which form fable rose and purple blend with ivory an almost continuous barrier against and gold-tinted white. When the sun the ocean-swell, and make navigation goes down in a pageant of color and safe for the smaller craft which hug the clear moon rises on sea and berg the mainland. Long fiords intersect and wild coast, the effects are indethe coast, and run far in among the scribably fine. Indeed for glorious hills. Bold red syenite headlands sunsets, for the wonders of mirage and stand perpendicularly out of the sea"ice-loom," and rainbow, for the for hundreds of feet. Behind these splendor of the Aurora, we are told, rise lofty terraced mountains with there is no land like this. rounded tops; and far back are peaks, Navigation is difficult and slow on whose sides are draped with clouds, account of the icepack filling the bays cleaving the sky to the height of five and channels running among the islor six thousand feet. No trace of ands; but harbors are numerous, and green catches the eye, except on the the scientist may frequently land and sheltered sides of the fiords; but you pursue his studies of the flora and see a patch of snow here and there, fauna, look into the homes of the even in the summer; and, if the moun- people, observe their habits, gather intain be jewelled with great masses of formation about the fisheries, and inlabradorite, as not unfrequently hap-terview stray Indians as to the nature pens, it flashes in the sun with a of the country that lies back from the strange brilliance. Eventide brings coast, with its lakes and mountains. with it a sombre beauty, a severity of He can dredge in the bays for shells glory, that is said to fill the beholder with wonder and awe that deepen into sadness.

Icebergs are common on the coast in the early summer. Stupendous masses from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in height, white as Carrara marble, stand out of a sea of azure, helmeted and plumed with loveliness. They assume a great variety of shape. Some are huge white chalk-cliffs, others are floating pyramids, some resemble great cathedrals, domed and minareted, others stately warships tumbling and rolling in surf, and others again are gigantic sculptures of all imaginable forms. And the color is as various as the shape. Superb alabaster, delicate blue, pale emerald, burnished silver on the sunny side, and in the shadow "soft as satin and changeable as costliest silk; the white, the dove-color, the green playing into each other with the subtlety and fleetness of an Aurora." Here, as the deep swell rushes up and breaks on the ledges of the berg, the water grows luminous and is barred and flecked with snow; there, as we look into wave-worn caverns that pierce its sides, we seem to be peering into the mouth of a huge

and marine insects, can note the rare sea-anemones and sea-pinks beautiful as any carnations, can study remarkable raised beaches and more remarkable terraced mountains.

The flora of Labrador is of special interest from the fact that Labrador is probably the oldest land surface on the globe producing a flora. In the north and east, the flora is Arctic, the remnants of the glacial flora that at one time spread over a great part of North America, when the reign of perpetual winter was supreme. This flora was pushed northward and eastward to the seacoast by the advance of the temperate forms as the glacial epoch came to a close. The flora of south Labrador is a commingling of Arctic with many Subarctic plants. The eastern valleys are filled with dense forests of dwarf alders, miniature trees the trunks of which do not exceed three or four feet in height. With these are interspersed here and there poplar, spruce, or mountain-ash, from ten to eighteen feet long. The dwarf willow, about six inches high, and several other species of willow, including Saliz herbacea and Salix walsamifera, grow and offer their honey-bearing flowers

The flora of northern Labrador is very scanty. The terribly bleak coast valleys west of Cape Chudleigh are either treeless or sustain forests of The tiny trunks are

to the bees. In the glades of these | filled with snow, and their dark lips of Liliputian forests deep mosses flourish, rock smile with bright flowers. Low the curlew-berry and dwarf cranberry sedges of several kinds are in blossom; ripen their fruit; the rocks are painted and, hidden in the greenery, are blue with the gayest of lichens, and sweet and white violets. We have referred Alpine plants display their rich blooms. chiefly to summer in the south. The transient summer lasts only six weeks. It comes without a spring, and departs without an autumn. Nature seems, while it lasts, to put forth her utmost energies to call back the loveli-dwarf-birch. ness which a savage winter had de- twisted like a corkscrew, the foliage is stroyed, to produce her blossoms and puny, and smoothly clipped by the ripen her seeds. The temperature wind as with a pair of shears. The rises during the day from 64° to 68° willows creep along the ground among Fahr., seldom exceeding 70°; but the mosses in matted beds. Further innights are cold. In the south, espe- land the spruce flourishes, but never cially, flowers are everywhere; on the grows to any great size. Summer banks of the streams, now swollen by scarcely can be said to visit this inhosthe melting snow; on the ragged walls pitable clime, where in July snow often of the ravines, beneath sheltering falls, and northerly gales, ice-laden and rocks, on ocean cliffs where the salt awful, wither every particle of fresh sea foam cannot reach them; their green leafage; where the gardens of odors stealing through secluded glens, the missionaries must be dug out of the and up hillsides which are carpeted with mosses of many hues, green and golden and carmine, and often two or three feet deep.

snow in the spring, and during the summer must be protected every night with mats, on account of the severe frosts.

Here are represented the ranun- Insect life is sparse on the Labrador culus cruciferous flowers, like the coast. The common pests of the world lady's smock and the icy whitlow are not absent, but the hum and drone grass; rosacea in abundance; saxi- and cheep of our own woodlands and frages like the aizoon with its silver meadows are not much heard. A yelrosettes, and the S. oppositifolia with low fly may flit by, an Arctic bumbleits glowing constellation of rich pur- bee buzz in the bell of some flower, or ple; stonecrops; a few quaint or a sheeny beetle sun himself on a leaf; chids; twenty species of the heath but you never hear the strident note of family, fragrant and bee-haunted; the a grasshopper, never see the flash of a Alpine speedwell, and many lilies; the dragon-fly; even the wasp is uncomdwarf Arctic laurel and the Labrador mon. If you catch a glimpse of the tea-plant. We see in the midst of rare Arctic bluet butterfly you will be more brilliantly painted flowers, like fortunate. Moths are more plentiful, the gentians, such world-wide wan- but are so perfectly harmonized in derers as the dandelion and the silver color with the vegetation amidst which weed of our roadsides. The wild they live that it is difficult to detect strawberry creeps luxuriantly, inter- them. Out of ten species of spiders twining itself with the honeysuckle, collected by Dr. Packard, seven were and not far away are the wild currant new to science. For complete lists of and the cloudberry. Here was a all known species we must refer the beautiful iris, a mountain trident with lover of natural history to Dr. Packits simple white flower, and, in all the ard's volume, and to the same pages glory of its rose-colored petals, the for an interesting record of successful willow-herb, the "fireweed," as the dredging along the coast in search of Americans call it, in company with the the plant and animal life of the sea. golden-rod. Deep gulches are still half"Of all pleasures of a naturalist's ex

istence, dredging," says Dr. Packard, | the British and the French Canadians "has been the most intense."

predominate. The settlements

are

The avifauna of this coast deserves a small, varying from half-a-dozen to longer notice than we can give it in this twenty houses, built of thick boards, article; but, it may be said, that it is with flat roofs well tarred. These, very abundant in individuals if not in with some rude fish-houses and a light species. Dr. Packard gives a list of wharf, constitute the fishing hamlet. two hundred and eight resident and The settler is poor, depending for a migratory species, ranging from the precarious livelihood on the harvest of golden eagle to the ruby-throated hum- the sea, which on this stormy coast is ming-bird. The eider, the loon, the often a failure, and supplementing his coot, the curlew, the guillemot, the auk, fishing by hunting. But the beaver, the great northern diver, the puffin, the otter, fox, wolf, and deer are yearly sheldrake, the ring-necked plover, the becoming more scarce and difficult to ptarmigan, and many others are here trap or shoot. The price of salt is in their season in immense numbers; high, and yet he must have it to cure and the settlers, wearying of salt pork his fish; and, too often, the merchant and dough-balls and treacle, their holds the whip of the truck system over staple food, abandon themselves to his head. His fish are bartered away snaring and shooting, and feasting on before they are caught, and he is hopegame. Off the coasts are bird-rocks of lessly in debt. He is recklessly brave, large size, literally white with sea-fowl, and faces without fear the ponderous which have here their colonies. At rollers from the Atlantic that break the report of a gun, ten thousand furiously on the coast. In his ugly birds will rise and flutter in the air. boat, some thirty feet long-a lowFormerly "eggers," schooners fitted masted craft, winged with heavy, out for the purpose of taking the eggs, amber-stained canvas, and manned visited the bird-rocks and carried away with heavy oars - he displays splendid to Quebec or Montreal millions of seamanship. But he has serious deeggs, especially of the eider-duck and fects. He is improvident, thriftless, the razor-bill auk, with the result that caring no more for the morrow than he the latter bird is well-nigh extinct. The cares for the angry sea, loving to idle traffic is now illegal. On shore the away the latter part of the fishing robin sings with the thrush for com- season as if he were incapable of propanion warbler; the kingfisher displays longed effort. Cleanliness is not one of his beauty in the marshes; wood- his virtues. "Living in dirty, forlorn peckers are heard at their task in the 'tilts,' smoked and begrimed, the occuwoods; and numerous wrens build in pants in some cases thoroughly harmothe dense undergrowths. With these nize with their surroundings. are found interesting and rare birds rough life is more or less demoralizing." whose names and forms are strange to As a matter of fact, there is very little European ears. immorality, and law and order are well maintained. The settler is religiously inclined, and, of the whole number, about one-third are Protestants, the remaining two-thirds being, nominally at least, Roman Catholics.

As to the people of Labrador, the permanent residents dwell in settlements in the more sheltered creeks and fiords, or are scattered in isolated families from Bonne Esperance, on the Straits of Belle Isle, eastward to Henley Harbor, and then northward to Domino Run, and from this point still further north to the Moravian mission stations and the posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. They number about eight thousand, and comprise individuals of many nationalities, in which

Their

In addition to the permanent residents, there is a summer floating population of about twenty-five thousand, chiefly Newfoundlanders and Canadians, who come in their vessels to fish on the Labrador coast. Many of these fishermen have their wives and children with them. Their annual catch

of codfish, herring, and salmon is worth | exceptional interference of the governsome £300,000. This does not include ment, they must have remained there to the value of the fish consumed by the perish during the winter." We cannot men on duty, or retained on the coast wonder that the Moravian missionaries for use during the winter, or of that who have toiled so heroically along the sent direct to Newfoundland for ship-northern strip of the Atlantic coast of ment from thence; nor does it include Labrador should give a doubly hearty the value of the catch of the Canadian welcome to the Mission to Deep Sea fishermen, who usually carry home Fishermen, which is doing a splendid with them their harvest, not selling it humanitarian as well as Christian work in Labrador. in its hospitals at Battle Harbor, and the mouth of the Hamilton Inlet, in addition to preaching the Gospel amongst the fishing fleet.

A

The condition of these toilers of the sea is even more deplorable than that of the settlers on the coast. Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell, of the Deep Sea Mis- Few brighter pages are found in the sion to Fishermen, has spoken of them history of Christian missions than those as a "derelict community, practically which record the work of the Moravians without civil, medical, or spiritual guid- among the Eskimos of Labrador. ance.' And the glimpses of them nation murderously savage, the terror which Dr. Packard gives confirms this of the Indians and of white men, has statement. We quote a sentence or been transformed into a law-abiding two from "The Labrador Coast: " people, among whom drunkenness is 66 Among the late arrivals was a New- almost unknown and crime is very rare. foundland fishing-smack, which had "On the books of the six churches two crews on board, and with them six there stood, at the beginning of 1894, women, all unmarried, two of them 1,369 names of adults and children, mere girls, who lived in the same cabin about six hundred being communicants. with the men, but stowed away in dark Of these, 1,084 were Eskimos dwelling holes and corners of the apartment. at the stations, being 26 more than the Everything about the interior was for- previous year; 275 were Eskimos or lorn, dirty, greasy, and not a soul aboard settlers living at some distance from the had apparently washed for weeks." stations. This total of 1,369 includes Again, "We went aboard one, and it nearly the whole of the sparse populawas indescribably filthy, above and be- tion of the coast." There are a few low; from the cabin arose a dreadful heathen in the neighborhood of Ungava stench; the women on board, with one Bay, and in order to reach these a new exception, harmonized in point of per- station is to be formed. Testimony is sonal appearance with their surround-borne to the excellence of the work of ings." These fishermen, like the these missionaries by Dr. Packard, who settlers, are ground down under the hateful truck system, which compels them to go to Labrador or starve, and to go in rotten vessels if sound ones are not available, which crowds men and women and children in unwholesome cabins, and is largely responsible for immorality and misery and loss of life. Dr. Grenfell says, "There are no official statistics, and official supervision is practically non-existent. In 1885, there were, I am told, twenty-seven hundred people, more than half of whom were women and children, left on this inhospitable coast, because their boats had gone to pieces in a gale, and, but for the

visited Hopedale, their most southerly station. "They were a well-bred, kindly, intelligent, scrupulously honest folk." He describes the new missionhouse, built of wood, red-roofed, convenient and warm; the new chapel; the servants, neat, cleanly, obedient; the piles of spruce-logs for fuel. He was gratified to find that the missionaries were men of culture, from whom he received lists of the plants and vertebrate animals of Labrador, accompanied with valuable notes. He admired their complete herbarium, and bought their collection of birds' eggs. He notes the carefully kept gardens.

He visits their homes and sanctuaries, | Even the kindness and skill of the and joins with them in religious wor-Moravians can obtain for him only a ship. At sunset, daily, the chapel bell brief respite. Many children die early. calls the whole community to prayer. The adult death-rate is abnormally The service lasts twenty minutes. high; and year by year there is sad There is an invocation or address in and pathetic diminishing of this inEskimo; music and singing, the choir teresting people. It is not easy to say consisting of native voices, and the what are the causes. But probably a organ being played by an Eskimo lad. softer physical fibre is induced by the The Sabbath, too, is well observed; new and civilized conditions under the reverence of the converts is very which they now live. The substituperceptible, and God is universally tion of the spade, to some extent, for honored. What a transformation as the spear, and of the overheated contrasted with the experience of the wooden house for the snow hut may be founders of the missions at Nain in factors in producing this rapid decay. 1771, when bloodshed was common in Perhaps there may be a profounder the frays between the English traders cause - the exhaustion of vital energy and the savage Eskimos ! resulting from the recasting of their life in forms less sensuous and more intellectual and spiritual than that of their fathers.

We pass from the coast to the interior. Central Labrador is a high plateau denuded of its softer strata, out of which stand truncated mountains. It has been planed by the action of great glaciers, which once capped it as they now cap Greenland. It has an area of four hundred and twenty thousand square miles. Its greatest breadth is about six hundred miles and its length one thousand miles. Probably four-fifths of the surface is water, lake being linked to lake over vast areas, and these are the sources of immense rivers that seek the sea on the north and south, as well as of the smaller ones that flow east into the Atlantic. The rivers are rather chains of lakes connected by rapids than continuous streams, and this would seem to indicate that the ice-cap which formerly crossed the plateau and filled up the valleys, has melted in comparatively recent ages, since there has not been sufficient time as yet for the rivers to grind down the valleys into continuous channels. The plateau is almost treeless; indeed, it is a forbidding, stony

This swarthy, square-faced, darkhaired mau leads a very industrious life. In the autumn we watch him hunt the reindeer in its native wilds far away in the interior; in the early spring he deftly drives his dog-sledges out on the coast ice in quest of the seal, returning to fish, first for trout in the rivers and estuaries, then for cod on the shallow banks that lie off the coast; and later, we see him after the seal again, on board his kayak gliding swiftly as a shadow over the surface of the ice-strewn sea; the temperature far below zero. The task is a most toilsome and a dangerous one; but the patient fisher waits for hours fast bound in his skiff, paddling back and forward in the bays and straits wet through with the icy spray which freezes on his kayak and his clothes. If overtaken by a storm or by darkness, he seeks some place of shelter on the coast, and there remains through the bitter night and awaits the cessation of the tempest. About Christmas, he returns from his wandering life to his home at the mission station, in order that his children may go to school, and he himself receive religious instruction. It is said that there is not an Eskimo on the coast who cannot read wilderness, where death reigns over and write, except of course the few heathen that still linger near Cape Chudleigh.

But this race, the Eskimo of Labrador, the only pure Eskimo, is doomed.

the severe magnificence of its icy lakes, which reflect no shady woods, and mountains which frown away the summer and welcome the storm to their gloomy precipices a land where no