“In five days we were on the high lands south of White Bay, and in sight of the high lands east of the Bay of Islands, on the west coast of Newfoundland.  The country south and west of us was low and flat, consisting of marshes, extending in a southerly direction more than thirty miles.  In this direction lies the famous Red Indians’ Lake.  It was now near the middle of November, and the winter had commenced pretty severely in the interior.  The country was every where covered with snow, and, for some days past, we had walked over the small ponds on the ice.  The summits of the hills on which we stood had snow on them, in some places, many feet deep.  The deer were migrating from the rugged and dreary mountains in the north, to the low mossy barren, and more woody parts in the south; and we inferred, that if any of the Red Indians had been at White Bay during the past summer, they might be at that time stationed about the borders of the low tract of country before us, at the deer-passes, or were employed somewhere else in the interior, killing deer for winter provision.  At these passes, which are particular places in the migration lines of path, such as the extreme ends of, and straights in, many of the large lakes—­ the foot of valleys between high and rugged mountains—­fords in the large rivers, and the like—–­the Indians kill great numbers of deer with very little trouble, during their migrations.  We looked out for two days from the summits of the hills adjacent, trying to discover the smoke from the camps of the Red Indians; but in vain.  These hills command a very extensive view of the country in every direction.

“We now determined to proceed towards the Red Indians’ Lake, sanguine that, at that known rendezvous, we could find the objects of our search.

“In about ten days we got a glimpse of this beautifully majestic and splendid sheet of water.  The ravages of fire, which we saw in the woods for the last two days, indicated that man had been near.  We looked down on the lake, from the hills at the northern extremity, with feelings of anxiety and admiration:—­No canoe could be discovered moving on its placid surface, in the distance.  We were the first Europeans who had seen it in an unfrozen state, for the three former parties who had visited it before, were here in the winter, when its waters were frozen and covered over with snow.  They had reached it from below, by way of the River Exploits, on the ice.  We approached the lake with hope and caution; but found to our mortification that the Red Indians had deserted it for some years past.  My party had been so excited, so sanguine, and so determined to obtain an interview of some kind with these people, that, on discovering from appearances every where around us, that the Red Indians—­the terror of the Europeans as well as the other Indian inhabitants of Newfoundland—­no longer existed, the spirits of one and all of us were very deeply affected.  The old mountaineer was particularly overcome.  There were every where indications, that this had long been the central and undisturbed rendezvous of the tribe, when they had enjoyed peace and security.  But these primitive people had abandoned it, after having been tormented by parties of Europeans during the last eighteen years.  Fatal rencounters had on these occasions unfortunately taken place.”