284 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



perhaps six inches long, the whole made together. 

 Although this had no ornament as is sometimes the 

 case, the work was rather neat and the boring of the 

 curved stem must have cost no little time and skill. 

 The Indians who had presented this pipe to the Gen- 

 eral, set a high value on it, and declared it to be very, 

 very old. There are found also, but rarely, little 

 figures, porringers, and other utensils of the same 

 material, which if not tasteful are always laboriously 

 made. The Indians no longer concern themselves 

 with the fabrication of such things ; getting all their 

 little needs from Europeans, this branch of industry 

 has become quite extinct among them. 



Of the medical knowledge of the Indians the opinion 

 here and there in America is still very high.* The 

 greater number, but not the well-informed, are con- 

 vinced that the Indians, mysteriously skilled in many 

 excellent remedies, carefully and jealously conceal 

 them from the white Europeans. As always so here, 

 people are deceived by the fancy that behind a veil of 

 mystery there lie hidden great and powerful things. 

 I see no reason to expect anything extraordinary or 



" hard clay, or rather stone, from which the Naudowessies 

 " make their household utensils." Carver. 



The bowl seen by me looked and felt like steatite. Mr. 

 Kirwan supposes that the white and yellow Terre a Chalumeau 

 of Canada is a sort of meerschaum. 



* This ungrounded but ancient misconception Dr. Benjamin 

 Rush of Philadelphia some time ago undertook to combat. 

 See his Oration delivered February 4, 1774, before the Ameri- 

 can Philosophical Society, containing an Enquiry into the 

 Natural history of Medicine among the Indians in North 

 America. A translation of this readable essay is to be found 

 in Samml. auserles. Abhandl. fur praktische Aertzte, IV, 267. 



