ined to draw sledges, to
which they are attached in teams of from eight to fourteen.
The temperature in winter ranges lower than that of Greenland, the
thermometer often showing a minimum of 70 deg. below freezing-point of
Fahrenheit. The climate is too severe to ripen any cereals, and the
flora is very limited.
The Moravian Mission to the Eskimoes on the north-east coast of
Labrador was established in 1771 by a colony of brethren and sisters
from England and Germany, who on July 1st reached Unity's Harbour, and
at once began the erection of a station, calling it NAIN. An earlier
attempt in 1752 under the direction of John Christian Erhardt had
failed, the leader of the little band of missionaries and the captain
of the ship, together with several men of the crew, having been killed
by the natives. Five more stations were subsequently added--viz., ZOAR
and HOPEDALE to the south, and OKAK, HEBRON, and RAMAH to the north of
Nain. The distance from Ramah to Hopedale is about three hundred
miles.
Since the year 1770, when the "Jersey Packet" was sent out on an
exploratory trip, the Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel has
maintained regular communication with Labrador by despatching each
year a ship, specially devoted to this missionary object. Eleven
different ships have been employed in this service, ranging from a
little sloop of seventy tons to a barque of two hundred and forty
tons. Of these only four were specially constructed for Arctic
service, including the vessel now in use, which was built in the year
1861. She is the fourth of the Society's Labrador ships bearing the
well-known name "THE HARMONY."
[Illustration: "THE HARMONY."]
=WITH THE HARMONY TO LABRADOR=.
NOTES OF A VISIT BY THE REV. B. LA TROBE.
What can a summer visitor tell of Labrador, that great drear land
whose main feature is winter, the long severe winter which begins in
October and lasts until June? I have been sailing over summer seas,
where in winter no water is visible, but a wide waste of ice
stretching thirty, forty, fifty or more miles from the snowy shores.
In the same good ship "Harmony," I have been gliding between the
innumerable islands of the Labrador archipelago and up the fine fjords
stretching far inland among the mountains, but in winter those bays
and straits and winding passages are all white frozen plains, the
highways for the dog-sledge post from station to station. I have
visited each of our six m
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