ve patients, the first of
the hospitals to be built as a result of the visit to the _Albert_ the
previous summer of the ragged man in the rickety boat. The other
hospital was in course of building at Indian Harbor, and Doctor
Grenfell dispatched the _Albert_, with Doctor Curwin and Miss Williams
to assist in preparing it for patients, while Doctor Bobart and Miss
Cawardine remained in charge of the Battle Harbor hospital.

Away Doctor Grenfell steamed again in the _Princess May_ nothing
daunted by his many difficulties with the little craft in his voyage
from St. John's. It was necessary that he know the headlands and the
harbors, the dangerous places and the safe ones along the whole coast.
The only way to do this was by visiting them, and the quickest and
best way to learn them was by finding them out for himself while
navigating his own craft. Now, light houses stand on two or three of
the most dangerous points of the coast, but in those days there were
none, and there were no correct charts. The mariner had to carry
everything in his head, and indeed he must still do so. He must know
the eight hundred miles of coast as we know the nooks and corners of
our dooryards.

Doctor Grenfell wished also to make the acquaintance of the people. He
wished to visit them in their homes that he might learn their needs
and troubles and so know better how to help them. He was not alone to
be their doctor. He was to clothe and feed the poor so far as he could
and to put them in a way to help themselves.

To do this it was necessary that he know them as a man knows his near
neighbors. He must needs know them as the family doctor knows his
patients. He was no preacher, but, to some degree, he was to be their
pastor and look after their moral as well as their physical welfare.
In short, he was to be their friend, and if he were to do his best for
them, they would have to look upon him as a friend and not only call
upon him when they were in need, but lend him any assistance they
could. To this end they would have to be taught to accept him as one
of themselves, come to live among them, and not as an occasional
visitor or a foreigner.

With the exception of a few small settlements of a half-dozen houses
or so in each settlement, the cabins on the Labrador coast are ten or
fifteen and often twenty or more miles apart. If all of them were
brought together there would scarcely be enough to make one fair-sized
village.

All of the peo