We Approached
The Lake With Hope And Caution; But Found To Our Mortification That
The Red Indians Had Deserted It For Some Years Past.
My party had been
so excited, so sanguine, and so determined to obtain an interview of
some kind with
These people, that, on discovering, from appearances
every where around us, that the Red Indians - the terror of the
Europeans as well as the other Indian inhabitants of Newfoundland - no
longer existed, the spirits of one and all of us were very deeply
affected. The old mountaineer was particularly overcome. There were
every where indications that this had long been the central and
undisturbed rendezvous of the tribe, where they had enjoyed peace and
security. But these primitive people had abandoned it, after having
been tormented by parties of Europeans during the last eighteen [Sic:
thirteen] years. Fatal rencounters had on these occasions
unfortunately taken place.
We spent several melancholy days wandering on the borders of the east
end of the lake, surveying the various remains of what we now
contemplated to have been an unoffending and cruelly extirpated
people. At several places, by the margin of the lake, are small
clusters of winter and summer wigwams in ruins. One difference, among
others, between the Boeothick wigwams and those of the other Indians
is, that in most of the former there are small hollows, like nests,
dug in the earth around the fire-place, one for each person to sit in.
These hollows are generally so close together, and also so close to
the fire-place, and to the sides of the wigwam, that I think it
probable these people have been accustomed to sleep in a sitting
position.
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Words from 1675 to 1956
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