THE INTERIOR OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 309, 21 March 1879, Page 17

THE INTERIOR OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

The interior of the island is at present almost wholly uninhabited. Traces of deer fences, thirty and foity miles long, only remain to tell of the sports and labours of the Bocothicks, the aboriginal Bod Indian tribe, long ago exterminated or driven away. The short-sighted policy of the whites in killing the goose that lays the golden egg led o the destruction of the unfortunate Bocothicks, for the sake of the valuable furs of fox, otter, etc., which they alone could procure. With them, of course, died out the fur trade. After they had been wantonly persecuted for over two hundred years, the local government, in the beginning of the present century, woke up to the idea of protecting a tribe that no longer existed ! But, though the Indian has been exterminated, the white man has not taken his place, the country lying desolate. Over regions that should yield rich harvests to the farmer's hands now flaunt the golden lily and the purple iris ; tangled vines of cranberry, partridge-berry and delicate capillaire carpet the ground with the darkest of green, flashing with fruit of scarlet and white, and thickets of blueberry, raspberry, and bakeapple in their season clothe in blue and crimson and amber the wasting plains. Great forests declare that beneath them lies a rich sub-soil that should furnish food for thousands ; aad no man is found to till this great lone land, which is the secure home of wolves, deer, black bears, hares, foxes, and all manner of vermin. Osprey and owl, raven, crow and blue jay, woodpecker and robin, martin, wren, thrush, titmouse, blackcap, flycatcher, grosbeak, snowbird and sparrow, all abound in the woods ; plover, bittern, snipe, whimbrel and sandpiper haunt the wilds and marshes. Partridges abound everywhere. Waterfowl of many species are found in the lakes and ponds, while gulls, cormorants, eider-ducks, goosanders, loons and puffins abound on the sea coast, and are to be had for the shooting. Penguins were once plentiful, but have been almost exterminated, and, almost within the memory of man, that now extinct bird, the great auk, found a breeding-place on the adjacent islands. Trout and salmon abound in the rivers and streams, but, though well protected by law, are wantonly destroyed in districts where law is practically without effect from the want of an efficient staff of water bailiffs.— Exchange.