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CHAPTER VI.

The Cacique's Conduct changes.-Description of the Indian Mode of Bird-fowling.-Their Religion.—Mr Elliot, our Surgeon, dies.-Transactions on our Journey.-Miserable Situation to which we are reduced.

OUR Cacique now made us understand that we must embark directly in the same canoe which brought us, and return to our companions; and that the Indians we were about to leave would join us in a few days, when we should all set out in a body, in order to proceed to the northward. In our way back nothing very material happened; but upon our arrival, which was the next day, we found Mr Elliot, the surgeon, in a very bad way; his illness had been continually increasing since we left him. Mr Hamilton and Mr Campbell were almost starved, having fared very ill since we left them; a few sea-eggs were all the subsistence they had lived upon, and these procured by the cacique's wife in the manner I mentioned before. This woman was the very reverse of my hostess; and as she found her husband was of so much consequence to us, took upon her with much haughtiness, and treated us as dependants and slaves. He was not more engaging in his carriage towards us; he would give no part of what he had to spare to any but Captain Cheap, whom his interest led him to prefer to the rest, though our wants were often greater. The captain, on his part, contributed to keep us in this abject situation, by approving this distinction the cacique shewed to him. Had he treated us with not quite so much distance, the cacique might have been more regardful of our wants. The little regard and attention which our necessitous condition drew from Captain Cheap, may be imputed likewise, in some measure, to the effects of a mind soured by a series of crosses and disappointments; which, indeed, had operated on us all to a great neglect of each other, and sometimes of ourselves.

We were not suffered to be in the same wigwam with the cacique and his wife, which, if we had had any countenance from Captain Cheap, would not have been refused. What

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we had made for ourselves was in such a bungling manner, that it scarce deserved the name even of this wretched sort of habitation. But our untoward circumstances now found some relief in the arrival of the Indians we waited for, who brought with them some seal, a small portion of which fell to our share. A night or two after, they sent out some of their young men, who procured us a quantity of a very delicate kind of birds, called shags and cormorants. Their manner of taking these birds resembles something a sport called bat-fowling. They find out their haunts among the rocks and cliffs in the night, when, taking with them torches made of the bark of the birch tree, which is common here, and grows to a very large size, (this bark has a very unctuous quality, and emits a bright and clear light, and in the northern parts of America is used frequently instead of a candle) they bring the boat's side as near as possible to the rocks, under the roosting-places of these birds, then waving their lights backwards and forwards, the birds are dazzled and confounded so as to fall into the canoe, where they are instantly knocked on the head with a short stick the Indians take with them for that purpose.

Seal are taken in some less-frequented parts of these coasts with great ease; but when their haunts have been two or three times disturbed, they soon learn to provide for their safety, by repairing to the water upon the first alarm. This is the case with them hereabouts; but as they frequently raise their heads above water, either to breathe or look about them, I have seen an Indian at this interval throw his lance with such dexterity, as to strike the animal through both its eyes at a great distance; and it is very seldom that they miss their aim.

As we were wholly unacquainted with these methods of providing food for ourselves, and were without arms and ammunition, we were drove to the utmost straits, and found ourselves rather in worse condition than we had been at any time before; for the Indians, having now nothing to fear from us, we found we had nothing to expect from them upon any other motive. Accordingly, if they ever did relieve us, it was through caprice; for at most times they would shew themselves unconcerned at our greatest distresses. But the good Indian women, whose friendship I had experienced before, continued, from time to time, their good offices to me. Though I was not suffered to en

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ter their wigwams, they would find opportunities of throwing in my way such scraps as they could secrete from their husbands. The obligation I was under to them on this account is great, as the hazard they ran in conferring these favours was little less than death. The men, unrestrained by any laws or ties of conscience in the management of their own families, exercise a most despotic authority over their wives, whom they consider in the same view they do any other part of their property, and dispose of them accordingly: Even their common treatment of them is cruel; for though the toil and hazard of procuring food lies entirely upon the women, yet they are not suffered to touch any part of it till the husband is satisfied, and then he assigns them their portion, which is generally very scanty, and such as he has not a stomach for himself. This arbitrary proceeding, with respect to their own families, is not peculiar to this people only. I have had occasion to observe it in more instances than this I have mentioned, among many other nations of savages I have since seen.

These Indians are of a middling stature, well set, and very active, and make their way among the rocks with an amazing agility. Their feet, by this kind of exercise, contract a callosity which renders the use of shoes quite unnecessary to them. But before I conclude the few observations I have to make on a people so confined in all their notions and practice, it may be expected I should say something of their religion; but as their gross ignorance is in nothing more conspicuous, and as we found it advisable to keep out of their way when the fits of devotion came upon them, which is rather frantic than religious, the reader can expect very little satisfaction on this head. Accident has sometimes made me unavoidably a spectator of scenes [ should have chosen to have withdrawn myself from; and so far I am instructed. As there are no fixed seasons for their religious exercises, the younger people wait till the elders find themselves devoutly disposed, who begin the ceremony by several deep and dismal groans, which rise gradually to a hideous kind of singing, from which they proceed to enthusiasm, and work themselves into a disposition that borders on madness; for, suddenly jumping up, they snatch fire-brands from the fire, put them in their mouths, and run about burning every body they come near; at other times it is a custom with them to wound one another

ther with sharp mussel-shells till they are besmeared with blood. These orgies continue till those who preside in them foam at the mouth, grow faint, are exhausted with fatigue, and dissolve in a profusion of sweat. When the men drop their part in this frenzy, the women take it up, acting over again much the same kind of wild scene, except that they rather outdo the men in shrieks and noise. Our cacique, who had been reclaimed from these abominations by the Spaniards, and just knew the exterior formof crossing himself, pretended to be much offended at these profane ceremonies, and that he would have died sooner than have partaken of them. Among other expressions of his disapprobation, he declared, that whilst the savages solemnized these horrid rites, he never failed to hear strange and uncommon noises in the woods, and to see frightful visions, and assured us that the devil was the chief actor among them upon these occasions.

It might be about the middle of March that we embarked with these Indians. They separated our little company entirely, not putting any two of us together in the same canoe. The oar was my lot, as usual, as also Mr Campbell's; Mr Hamilton could not row, and Captain Cheap was out of the question; our surgeon was more dead than alive at the time, and lay at the bottom of the canoe he was in. The weather coming on too bad for their canoes to keep the sea, we landed again, without making any great progress that day. Here Mr Elliot, our surgeon, died. At our first setting out, he promised the fairest for holding out, being a very strong active young man: He had gone through an infinite deal of fatigue, as Mr Hamilton and he were the best shots amongst us, and whilst our ammunition lasted never spared themselves, and in a great measure provided for the rest; but he died the death many others had done before him, being quite starved. We scraped a hole for him in the sand, and buried him in the best manner we could.

Here I must relate a little anecdote of our Christian cacique. He and his wife had gone off at some distance from the shore in their canoe, when she dived for sea-eggs; but not meeting with great success, they returned a good deal out of humour. A little boy of theirs, about three years old, whom they appeared to be doatingly fond of, watching for his father and mother's return, ran into the surf to meet

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them: The father handed a basket of sea-eggs to the child, which being too heavy for him to carry, he let it fall; upon which the father jumped out of the canoe, and catching the boy up in his arms, dashed him with the utmost violence against the stones. The poor little creature lay motionless and bleeding, and in that condition was taken up by the mother, but died soon after. She appeared inconsolable for some time, but the brute his father shewed. little concern about it.

A day or two after we put to sea again, and crossed the great bay I mentioned we had been to the bottom of, when we first hauled away to the westward. The land here was very low and sandy, with something like the mouth of a river, which discharged itself into the sea, and which had been taken no notice of by us before, as it was so shallow that the Indians were obliged to take every thing out of their canoes, and carry it over the neck of land, and then haul the boats over into a river which at this part of it was very broad, more resembling a lake than a river. We rowed up it for four or five leagues, and then took into a branch of it, that ran first to the eastward, and then to the northward; Here it became much narrower, and the stream excessively rapid, so that we made but little way, though we worked very hard. At night we landed upon its banks, and had a most uncomfortable lodging, it being a perfect swamp; and we had nothing to cover us, though it rained very hard. The Indians were little better off than we, as there was no wood here to make their wigwams; so that all they could do was to prop up the bark they carry in the bottom of their canoes with their oars, and shelter themselves as well as they could to leeward of it. They, knowing the difficulties that were to be encountered here, had provided themselves with some seal; but we had not the least morsel to eat, after the heavy fatigues of the day, excepting a sort of root we saw some of the Indians make use of, which was very disagreeable to the taste. We laboured all the next day against the stream, and fared as we had done the day before. The next day brought us to the carrying-place. Here was plenty of wood, but nothing to be got for sustenance.

The first thing the Indians did was to take every thing out of their canoes, and after hauling them ashore, they made their wigwams, We passed this night, as generally

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