With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes of a Visit to the Moravian Mission Stations on the North-East - Coast of Labrador by Benjamin la Trobe
page 54 of 95 (56%)
page 54 of 95 (56%)
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rest two women are standing in the water and pushing manfully. Their
position and occupation illustrate the utility of their national female costume of trousers and boots. Skirts would be impracticable when they go out boating and fishing with their husbands or trudge through the deep snow, which lies on the ground more than half a year. Nevertheless they look odd to an unaccustomed eye. The children are comical miniatures of their fathers and mothers, and sometimes it is difficult to tell whether they are boys or girls. Do you see the station boat lying a little way from the end of the pier? She is named the "Kitty," and has an interesting history. Many years ago she brought to Okak the five survivors of the ship "Kitty" lost in the ice of Hudson's Bay. The captain and ten men escaped in the larger boat, but fell into the hands of heathen Eskimoes, who treacherously murdered them all. Those in the smaller boat rounded Cape Chudley and were driven by the wind among the islands near Okak. Here they were seen by Eskimoes belonging to the station. Emaciated and famished, they feared a cruel death, but to their astonishment the natives helped them ashore, took them into their little hut of sods, wrapped them in skins, and supplied them with food. Very beautiful to those ship-wrecked mariners sounded the singing and very solemn the prayers at the morning and evening devotions of their Eskimo deliverers. As soon as the wind permitted, the natives brought them to the station, where they were carried ashore to this mission-house and received every attention. They were in a deplorable condition and the missionaries had to perform some surgical operations on severely frost-bitten limbs. When recovered, three of them went to the south, and the other two worked their passage home in the "Harmony." Here come a number of women and children running to the pier. Several |
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