"In fact, I don't know of anything short of starvation, or dying of thirst, that would take me back there." After supper our lads went ashore at the island settlement, and were hospitably received by the dwellers in its half-dozen stoutly built, earthen-roofed houses.

These were constructed of logs, set on end like palisades, and while they were scantily furnished, they were warm and comfortable.

In them Cabot, who was regarded with great curiosity on account of having come from the far foreign city of New York, asked many questions, and acquired much information concerning the strange country to which Fate had brought him.

Thus he learned that Labrador is a province of Newfoundland, and that while its prolific fisheries attract some 20,000 people to its bleak shores every summer, its entire resident white population hardly exceeds one thousand souls.

He was told that from June to October news of the outside world is received by steamer from St.Johns every two or three weeks, but that during the other eight months of the year only three mails reach the country, coming by dog sledge from far-away Quebec.
While Cabot was gathering these and many other interesting bits of information, White was becoming confirmed in his belief that to make a successful trading trip he must carry his goods far to the northward.
So at daybreak of the following morning the "Sea Bee" was once more got under way, and ran up the rock-bound coast past Chateau Bay, with its superb Castle Rock, to Battle Harbour, the metropolis of Labrador, which place was reached late the same evening.
At this point, which is at the eastern end of the Belle Isle Strait, is a resident population of some two hundred souls, a hospital, a church, a schoolhouse, and a prosperous mercantile establishment.