._--Safe at Ramah, thank God, and not out in the fog,
which now envelopes sea and land. The last two days have been a trial
of patience. We have seen the entrance to this Nullatatok Bay all the
time, and longed to reach the desired haven, yet have not been able,
owing to calms and contrary currents. This Labrador coast becomes ever
bolder and grander as one sails northward. Here the snowy mountains
are quite Alpine in appearance. This morning the thick mist hides all
but the base of these magnificent hills, but the enormous rocky
masses, rising so quickly from the water's edge into the heights
veiled from us, give some idea of their grandeur. Our captain is,
indeed, well acquainted with their aspect or he would not have
ventured to enter this bay under such circumstances.

"RAMARSUK" (NEAT LITTLE RAMAH).

[Illustration]

Missionaries all over the world are perhaps too fond of multiplying
Scripture names of their stations. In our own fields we have already
three Bethanys and three Bethesdas. We should have had three Ramahs
too, had not the natives of Australia themselves greatly improved the
appellation of theirs by adding to it a syllable meaning "home" or
mother's place. It seemed so homelike to the Christian Aborigines, who
moved thither from Ebenezer, the older station, that they at once
called it Ramahyuck (Ramah, our home). Perhaps as the Ramah on the
Moskito Coast is also known as Ramah Key, the northern station in
Labrador, founded in 1871 to mark the cenutry of that mission, should
abide plain, simple "Ramah," otherwise the above combination would, I
understand, have suited the genius of the language, and its
significance. "Neat little Ramah" certainly expresses the character of
the lonely missionary settlement.

The village, if one may dignify this small group of human dwellings by
that name, stands on a little plain evidently won by degrees from the
sea for the successive beaches can be traced. The mission premises,
the old house, the new house, and the church with its little belfry,
are one continuous building facing the bay southward, and exactly one
hundred feet in length. Behind are the store buildings, and the low
turf huts of the natives stretch westward along the strand. They are
so like grassy mounds, that from any distance one would ask, "But
where do the Eskimoes live?"

The missionary dwelling is primitive enough, even as enlarged. During
our brief stay here, I have the honour of occup