efore he left.

The life of the sea, with all its attractions, is at best a hazardous
calling, and it speaks loud in the praise of the capacity and simple
faith of our people that in the midst of a trying and often perilous
environment, they retain so quiet and kindly a temper of mind. During
my voyage to the seal fishery I recall that one day at three o'clock
the men were all called in. Four were missing. We did not find them
till we had been steaming for an hour and a half. They were caught on
pans some mile or so apart in couples, and were in prison. We were a
little anxious about them, but the only remark which I heard, when at
last they came aboard, was, "Leave the key of your box the next time,
Ned."

To those who claim that Labrador is a land of plenty I would offer the
following incident in refutation. At Holton on a certain Sunday
morning the leader of the church services came aboard the hospital
steamer and asked me for a Bible. Some sacrilegious pigs which had
been brought down to fatten on the fish, driven to the verge of
starvation by the scarcity of that article, had broken into the church
illicitly one night, and not only destroyed the cloth, but had
actually torn up and eaten the Bible. In reply to inquiry I gave it
as my opinion that it would be no sin to eat the pork of the erring
quadrupeds.

Once when I was cruising on the North Labrador coast I anchored one
day between two desolate islands some distance out in the Atlantic, a
locality which in those days was frequented by many fishing craft. My
anchors were scarcely down when a boat from a small Welsh brigantine
came aboard, and asked me to go at once and see a dying girl. She
proved to be the only woman among a host of men, and was servant in
one of the tiny summer fishing huts, cooking and mending for the men,
and helping with the fish when required. I found her in a rude bunk in
a dark corner of the shack. She was almost eighteen, and even by the
dim light of my lantern and in contrast with the sordid surroundings,
I could see that she was very pretty. A brief examination convinced me
that she was dying. The tender-hearted old captain, whose aid had been
called in as the only man with a doctor's box and therefore felt to be
better qualified to use it than others, was heart-broken. He had
pronounced the case to be typhoid, to be dangerous and contagious, and
had wisely ordered the fishermen, who were handling food for human
consumption, to lea