262 ABORIGINES 0F NE‘VFOUNDLAND.

evasive than men ought to be. At other times, at the sight of them, the terror of the ignorant European has goaded him on to murder the innocent, at the bare mention of which civilisation ought to weep. I ncessant and ruthless persecution,continuedfor many generations, has given these silvan people an utter

distrust and abhorrence of the very signs of civilisa‘ tion. Shanandithit, the surviving female of those who

were captured four years ago by some fishermen, will not now return to her tribe, for fear they should put» her to death ; a proof of the estimation in which we are held by that persecuted poeple.

“ The situation of the unfortunate Boeothics car- ries with it our warmest sympathy, and loudly calls on us all to do something for the sake of humanity. For my own satisfaction, I have, for a time, released myself from all other avocations, and am here now on my way to Visit that part of the country which the surviving remnant of the tribe have of late years frequented, to endeavour to force’a friendly interview with some of them, before they are entirely annihila- ted; but it will most probably require many such interviews, and some years, to reconcile them to the approaches of civilized man.”*

Mr Cormack proceeded from Twillingate, by sea, to the Bay of Exploits, and he gives us the narrative of his journey in a statement laid before the Boeothi'c Institution at St John’s. “ Having,” says he, “ so

* At this meeting a society was formed, and called the Boeothic Institution, the primary object of which was to discover and open a friendly intercourse with the Red Indians, 01' Boeothics.