the eye ranges along the rugged coast with its innumerable islands and deep fjords.  Yonder sheet of water is not an arm of the sea, but a great freshwater lake, long an object of superstitious dread to the Eskimoes.  Neither in summer or winter dared they cross it, until their missionaries did so, for they believed a monster dwelt in it, who could eat up the man and his kayak, or sledge, dogs and driver.  Inland one sees mountain after mountain, whose wild slopes are traversed by no human foot unless the Nascopie Indian, or “mountaineer,” may pass that way in pursuit of the reindeer.  None of these natives of the great unknown interior have visited our stations this year.  In the Zoar bay beneath us the “Harmony” is riding at anchor near the mission premises, and now we can see the whole curve of the other great bay, which approaches Zoar from the north.  The “itiblek,” as the Eskimoes call a low narrow neck of land between two such arms of the sea, is but a few hundred yards across.  To the east of yonder waterfall is a level place on the shore of the larger fjord, which was once thought of as a site for this station.  But it would have been too much exposed to the east wind.

What a different landscape this will be in winter, when all those waterways among the islands are frozen!  It must be very difficult even for an Eskimo sledge driver to know his way through the snow-covered labyrinth on so large a scale, indeed almost impossible when the driving snow hides his landmarks.  But He, to whom we are wont to commend our travellers by land and sea, cares also for those who traverse the ice-plains of Labrador, that they may serve Him or join His people in worship.  Not only our missionaries but the settlers have often experienced His goodness in answer to prayer in moments of perplexity or danger.  It is indeed praiseworthy that, to gain a blessing for their souls, the latter are willing to run the risks and bear the expenses of a two or three days’ sledge journey to the stations, often in terrible cold.  Sometimes their children are sorely disappointed when the parents cannot venture to take them to the Christmas or Easter Festival.  Last Christmas Eve, two boys, aged sixteen and fourteen, started from their home in Kamarsuk bay and walked through deep snow to Zoar, which they reached after ten laborious hours.  English services are held for the settlers at this station as well as at Hopedale, though they are more frequent at the southern place owing to the visits of the crews from the Newfoundland fishing schooners.

FROM ZOAR TO NAIN BETWEEN ISLANDS.