Swiss lakes are raked, Belgian caves spaded and hammered, to find relics of old, pre-historical races. Go to Labrador, and you find the object sought above ground. There he is, preserving all the characters of his extinct congeners,--small in stature, low and smooth in cranium, held utterly in the meshes of Nature, skilled only to meet ingeniously the necessities she imposes, and meeting them rudely, as man ever does till the ideal element comes in: for any fine feeling of even physical wants, any delicacy of taste, any high notion of comfort, is due less to the animal than to the spiritual being of man. A little sophisticated he is now, getting to feel himself obsolete in this strange new world. He begins to borrow, and yet is unable radically to change; outwardly he gains a very little from civilization, and grows inwardly poorer and weaker by all that he gains. His day wanes apace; soon it will be past. He begins to nurse at the breasts of the civilized world; and the foreign aliment can neither sustain his ancient strength nor give him new. Civilization forces upon him a rivalry to which he is unequal; it wrests the seal from his grasp, thins it out of his waters; and he and his correlative die away together. * * * * * We reached Hopedale, as intimated above, on the morning of the 30th of July, at least a month later than had been hoped. The reader will see by the map that this place is about half way from the Strait of Belle Isle to Hudson's Strait. We were to go no farther north. This was a great disappointment; for the expectation of all, and the keen desire of most, had been to reach at least Cape Chudleigh, at the opening of Hudson's Strait. Ice and storm had hindered us: they were not the only hindrances. "The Fates are against us," said one. "It is true," answered the Elder,--"the Fates are against us: I know of nothing more fatal than imbecility."