The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1902-05-21
Isolated Newfoundland.

1T Is probable that no English speak
ing people is at this time so utterly iso-
lated from all things OF advanced civil
lization as the folk who fish from the little
harbors which lie along that stretch OF
the east coast of Newfoundland between
Cape John on the south and the Straits
Of Belle Isle on the north. There are no
roads, no paths, leading from harbor TO
harbor. The land is a wilderness, dense
trackless infested with black flies and
mosquitoes, which brave men dare not
challenge for many days in hot weather,
for fear of their lives. Shore fishermen
would rather take their little punts
through 40 miles of tossing sea than suffer
the fatigue and terrors of two-mile
tramp inland. Communication, indeed, is
only by punt and skiff; and so rarely do
the people go from place to place that
woman, who went from home with her
husband TO settle in a narbor five miles
distant. did not see her relatives again
for Is years. Moreover. the mail steamer
touches at but two of the more important
settlements, and that only at fortnightly
intervals in June, July and August. The
news OF the world. in distorted form, Is
passed along by word of mouth. long
after IL has ceased TO be acutely inter-
esting to the people of more favored
lands.
"'',ris said said an old man of Round
Harbor who had heard of the first British
defeats In South Africa, that the English
do be beaten. Do the Beers be after cap
turing st. Johns yet? Do they be fighting
there. tell me-?
'One meets with such absurd miscon-
Of
the men of that coast. the world, which
is fiat and almost circumscribed by the
horizon is world of sea an drocks and
punts and fish. Their Imagination carries
them no farther. and they come into
touch with the things of other places so
rarely that they cannot comprehend the
information which the new and passing
association has brought to them.
docs they catch fish with squid or
caplin for bait in New York 'arborg was
boys question at Englee.
"An attempt 10 describe a circus to this
lad. few moments later. had to be aban-
doned IL would have taken the whole
afternoon TO define the terms. What
was sawdust? WI 1T was a tent? What
did a horse look like? What was uni
form? What was a springboard? What
was an acrobat? What was a band?
What was n horn? Was II like the bait
skiff conch? What was a drum? What
was a chariot! Nnat was n procesSlon :
What was a peanut? AS for clowns,
lemonade, elephants-these were incom-
prehensible. Questions. politely put, in
terrupted every sentence. The lad was
soon in a maze out of which he could not
be led The attempt had, indeed. TO be
abandoned But the writer did succeed
in describing a brick. a sidewalk and a
plow When IL came, however, In the
evening. TO helping the lads mother to
an understanding of the lives of the
women of New York, he was over
whelmed.
They tells me- she said, that the
women up there do be good haid [ split
fish, Now, how many quintal can they
do In a day?'
she did not doubt that she could split
more than any of them, and she was
proud that she could
my daughter Maria she went on, as
IL In challenge can lift a barrel of -FOUR
Maria. a muscular young woman OF
is, with dark hair, large blue eyes and
a fine pink and white complexion,
blushed and admitted that she could.
She had rowcd the punt II miles that
morning. she said, and could sail II in a
gale like a man.
THAT she can, SIR said her father.
She can sail IL so well as me-. Norman
Duncan In Ainslee's.