McKenzie, James. Some Account of the King's Posts, the Labrador Coast, and the Island of Anticosti by an Indian Trader Residing there Several Years with a Description of the Natives and the Journal of a trip through those Countries in 1808 by the Same Person. An electronic transcription. MFTP #0017

they are equally patient under personal sufferings owing perhaps to the like cause and to their being insensible of danger for the rueful countenance of a Doctor never increases their apprehensions and they leave this life with as little struggle as they came into it. They carry their dead to be interred in consecrated Ground at the expence of the Bourgeois – and the Priest when he passes performs the funeral Service, assisted by his tawny congregation, with vociferous solemnity over the Grave. Any of them who dies at a distance without Relations to perform the last duty more decently is the instant he expires huddled into a hole. They bestow presents of Furs annually upon the church – the quantity & quality of which as well as the fervency of their prayers are like the sincerity of sailors prayers in a storm in proportion to the Degree of Danger they are in from famine Sickness or Death.

Their Organs are so constructed as to absorb every pestilential Desease floating in the air or communicated to them by the Crews of wrecks and the inhabitants of the adjacent Parishes. In 1802 the small Pox made a great havoc among them and

so

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L E G E N D :
 in red , modifications made by the editor(s).
 in lavender , modifications made by the assumed author(s).

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