When, at last, word comes south that the ice is clearing from the coast, the vessels spread their little wings to the first favouring winds; and in a week-two weeks or three-the last of the Labradormen have gone "down north."

Dr. Grenfell and his workers find much to do among these men and women and children.

At Indian Harbour where the Strathcona lay at anchor, I went aboard the schooner Jolly Crew. It was a raw, foggy day, with a fresh northeast gale blowing, and a high sea running outside the harbour. They were splitting fish on deck; the skiff was just in from the trap-she was still wet with spray.

"I sails with me sons an' gran'sons, zur,' said the skipper, smiling. "Sure, I be a old feller t' be down the Labrador, isn't I, zur ?" He did not mean that. He was proud of and strength-glad that he was still able "t' be at the fishin'.”

his

age

""Tis a wonder you've lived through it all," said I.

He laughed. "An' why, zur ?" he asked. "Many's the ship wrecked on this coast,” I answered.

"Oh no, zur," said he; "not so many, zur, as you might think. Down this way, zur, we knows how t' sail!"

That was a succinct explanation of very much that had puzzled me.

"Ah, well,” said I, "'tis a hard life.” “Hard ?” he asked, doubtfully.

"Yes," I answered; "'tis a hard lifethe fishin'.'

"Oh no, zur," said he, quietly, looking up from his work. ""Tis just-just life!"

They do, indeed, know how "t' sail." The Newfoundland government, niggardly and utterly independable when the good of the fisherfolk is concerned, of whatever complexion the government may chance to be, but prodigal to an extraordinary degree when individual self-interests are at stake

this is a delicate way of putting an unpleasant truth,-keeps no light burning beyond the Strait of Belle Isle; the best it does, I believe, is to give wrecked seamen free passage home. Under these difficult circumstances, no seamen save Newfoundlanders, who are the most skillful and courageous of all, could sail that coast: and they only because they are born to follow the sea-there is no escape for them-and are bred to sailing from their earliest years.

"What you going to be when you grow up?" I once asked a lad on the far northeast coast.

He looked at me in vast astonishment.

"What you going to be, what you going to do," I repeated, "when you grow up?” Still he did not comprehend. "Eh?" he said.

"What you going to work at," said I, in desperation," when you're a man?"

"Oh, zur," he answered, understanding at last, "I isn't clever enough t' be a parson And so it went without saying that he