Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1889-09-20
THE LAND OF SILENCE.
EABHADoH AND 1rs MosT WoNDEH.
FUR HISTORY.

LAHHAD0H IND H1h MOST WONDLEa
FUR afsroRE
An Almost Uahnowa LaHa where stsr~
fifty aad Loneiiness Refgs Supreme.
tts Two DivIsions--The story OF the
oIa Ibertsn Race OF Famed Suvi-
gstors.
Labrador proper, writes Edgar wako-
man In the Chicago "lnter-Ocean," 10
that almost unknown land OF unparalleled
sterillty and loneliness lying between
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Atlantic
ocean and that we'll nigh limitles inland
sea, Hudson's bay That portion known
TO men as the part, or the sea-line part,
we had set forth to look upon. II
properly consists of two grand coastwise
divisions. Thewaters Of the first flow from
iesolate solitudes into the St. Lawrence
and gulf, along the immeasurable county
Of SagueEey, In the province Of Quebec,
while those of the other seek the Allan
tic to the north of Belle Isle straits,
along tho grandest but most forbidding
shores Of any land, to where Greenland
Is but days journey ahead Of favoring
gales.
On tho ono hand, all along this fright
iul coast, from the lofty rocks OF the
Saguenay, which stand like eternal sem
tinels Of the st. Lawrence, to the bare
peaks beyond the last wretched hut of
Hebron, the remotest of tho Moravian
missions in North America, the entire
,oast-line Is one intermlnaDle roach and
record Of human peril and suffering, of
'og, iceberg and tempest, and of wreck
and disaster lnCOnceiVablo.
on the other hand, behind this rugged
coast, there Is but waste so barren, SO
mighty in its immeasurable solitude of
rock and stream and inland sea, so inde-
scribably 'tho land given to Cain, as
told by Jacques Cartier in 1884, that only
The Imagination can traverse ii to that
lwRul, farthest north. where silence sits
.rozen at the feet of God.
And yet there Is moro than fancy and
legend in the tales our captain told of
olden activities along these shores as we
exhilaratingly swept these northern
waters. Tales weird and strange they
we're; but the warm blood of Basque
was in his own veins, and his eyes kin
died with the wondrous histories OF
Basque adventures here 1000 years ago
histories which, could they be proven,
would compel Bancroft and Headley to
rewrite all their early pages, and would
sadly dampen the enthusiasm for the
proposed Columbus celebration of 1892.
Briefly this is how the story runs
The old Iberian race-perhap5 a rae
1000 years older than the Egyptian,
which came from somewhere and over.
ran Europe from the mediterranean td
the Archangel and Kara seas, and finally
succumbed to other invasions, blendings
and assimilatlons--comprised a people
not only cultivated in the arts, but those
which gave the world it's first and great
est navigators and sea 0dventurers. All
coasts and climes were known TO them.
The concentrated remnant OF this mighty
people gave to the Basque provinces and
Brittany their interesting and spirited
folk. From among these, moro than
1000 years before Columbus, assisted By
the willy though niggardly spirit OF Span
ish conquest and domination, made the
uow world subjective to the old, were
those Iberian or Basque navigators, who
had seen every rod of coast line from
Nova Zembla hey, nd the bowling m@l-
e'roms of Spitzbergen sea, around the
arctic Spitzbergen groups, the far lee
landic iorths, past Greenland's 1000
miles of ice and silence, the eternal ice
peaks Of Ellesmere Land and CumLcr-
land island, down beyond the dreary
reach Of Labrador, all along the mighty
distances of st. Lawrence's gulf and
Newfoundland ITSELF pas, Prince Ed
wards and Cape Breton islands and
Nova Scotia, to that dread mystery and
graveyard of the sea, Sable island where
during all these centuries they had
chased the whale and taken the mackerel
and cod. From such as these humble
and unknown whalers and sailors. Col.
umbus undoubtedly gained his positive
knowledge of America, and through It
his immortality OF fame.