CHAP. ix. INDIAN MODE OF OBTAINING FIRE. 149 



was anxious to know how long it would take them to 

 reach the end of the portage ; and, in order to learn 

 this, pointed to the sun and then slowly moved his 

 hand in the direction they were going, and slowly back 

 again towards himself; pointing to the sun again, he 

 described a small arc in the air, and directed his finder to 



o 



a part of the heavens, where the sun would be in a couple 

 of hours. The Indian smiled, and pointed a little lower 

 in the heavens, indicating that it would take them about 

 three hours before they would get to the end of the 

 portage, and return to where they then stood. On another 

 occasion the Nasquapee was with me, and observed that 

 I took some matches out of a match-box and tried to 

 light one ; but they were damp, and would not ignite. 

 He signed to me to lend him my knife. He cut a stout 

 stick from a neighbouring larch, and taking out the 

 leather thong with which his moccasins were tied, made 

 a short bow and strung it. He then searched for a 

 piece of dry wood, and, having found it, cut it into shape, 

 sharpened both ends, and twisted it once round the bow- 

 string ; he then took a bit of fungus from his pocket and 

 put it into a little hole which he made in another dry 

 piece of wood with the point of the knife. A third piece 

 of dry wood was fashioned into a handle for his drill. 



Kneeling down on the ground, he held the stick 

 twisted in the bow-string loosely in one hand, and ad- 

 justed it in the handle, placing the other point in the 

 hollow he had made in the piece of dry wood ; he then 

 put a bit of the fungus close to the point, and commenced 

 to draw the bow backwards and forwards, thus giving 

 the stick a quick rotary motion. In twelve or fourteen 



