the attention most while gliding down the stream, is the
extent of the Indian fences to entrap the deer. They extend from the
lake downwards, continuous, on the banks of the river at least thirty
miles. There are openings left here and there in them, for the animals
to go through and swim across the river, and at these places the
Indians are stationed, and kill them in the water with spears, out of
their canoes, as at the lake. Here, then, connecting these fences with
those on the north-west side of the lake, is at least forty miles of
country, easterly and westerly, prepared to intercept all the deer
that pass that way in their periodical migrations. It was melancholy
to contemplate the gigantic, yet feeble efforts of a whole primitive
nation, in their anxiety to provide subsistence, forsaken and going to
decay.

There must have been hundreds of the Red Indians, and that not many
years ago, to have kept up these fences and ponds. As their numbers
were lessened so was their ability to keep them up for the purposes
intended; and now the deer pass the whole line unmolested.

We infer, that the few of these people who yet survive, have taken
refuge in some sequestered spot, still in the northern part of the
island, and where they can procure deer to subsist on.

On the 29th November we were again returned to the mouth of the River
Exploits, in thirty days after our departure from thence, after having
made a complete circuit of about 200 miles in the Red Indian
territory.

* * * * *

I have now stated generally the result of my excursion, avoiding, for
the present, entering into any detail. The materials collected on
this, as well as on my excursion across the interior a few years ago,
and on other occasions, put me in possession of a general knowledge of
the natural condition and productions of Newfoundland; and, as a
member of an institution formed to protect the aboriginal inhabitants
of the country in which we live, and to prosecute inquiry into the
moral character of man in his primitive state, I can, at this early
stage of our institution, assert, trusting to nothing vague, that we
already possess more information concerning these people than has been
obtained during the two centuries and a-half in which Newfoundland has
been in the possession of Europeans. But it is to be lamented that
now, when we have taken up the cause of a barbarously treated people,
so few should remain to r