ANTICOSTI. 213

Government has established a station, with a family, at each end of the island, and posts, without inhabitants, along the shore, with directions to per- sons Who have escaped from shipwreck Where to proceed.

Of the interior of this island we know but little. It is covered with woods, chiefly dwarf spruce, white cedar, birch, and poplar: the trees appear to be all of low and stunted growth. Near the shore the land appears unfit for cultivation. A few spots of tolerable soil are, it is true, met with; but the want of harbours, and the severity of the climate, are insu- perable objections to its settlement. It is a seignory, being formerly under the government of Canada, and belongs, I believe, to a private family at Quebec. The Indians, who, on their hunting excursions, have penetrated into the interior, have informed me that the lands are swampy or wet, with the exception of a few hills.

Bears, foxes. hares, and sables, are very numerous. Partridges, snipes, curlews, plovers, &c. abound.

in the fall of 1828, on their homeward passage, must have either been attended by the most revolting sufferings, or they must have been murdered by a piratical gang, who are said to infest the place. The mutilated and disjointed bodies, some parts of which “ were found salted in a chest, discovered in the but which those ’ unfortunate men had erected, led to the conclusion that those who survived longest lived on the flesh of the dead. The results of a i?” Captain Rayside’s enquiries, who commanded the government brig Kingfisher on the coast last summer, seem to warrant the belief that they were murdered by pirates, and their bodies muti- lated for the purpose of creating suspicion that they died of famine, and devoured each other.