152 EEV. GEO. PATTEESON ON THE BEOTHIKS 



at a portage known by the name of the Indian path, we found traces made by the Red 

 Indians evidently in the spring or summer of the preceding year. Their party had had 

 two canoes, and here was a canoe rest, on which the daubs of red ochre and the roots of 

 trees used to fasten or to tie it together appeared fresh. A canoe rest is simply a few 

 beams supported horizontally about five feet from the ground by perpendicular posts. A 

 party with two canoes when descending from the interior to the sea coast, through such 

 a part of the country as this, where there are troublesome portages, leave one canoe rest- 

 ing bottom up on this kind of frame, to protect it from injury by the weather until their 

 return. Among other things which lay strewed about here were a spear shaft eight feet 

 in length, recently made and ochred, parts of old canoes, fragments of their skin dresses, 

 etc. For some distance around the trunks of many of the birch and fir had been rinded, 

 these people using the inner bark of the latter for food.' Some of the cuts in the trees 

 with the axe were evidently made the preceding year. Besides these we were elated by 

 other encouraging signs. The traces left by the Red Indians are so peculiar that we were 

 confident those we saw here were made by them. 



" This spot has been a favourable place of settlement with these people. It is situated 

 at the commencement of a portage, which forms a communication by a path between the 

 sea coast at Badger Bay, about eight miles to the northeast, and a chain of lakes extending 

 westerly and southerly from hence and discharging their surplus waters into the River 

 Exploits, about thirty miles from its mouth. A path also leads from this place to the 

 lakes near New Bay to the eastward. Here are the remains of one of their villages, where 

 the vestiges of eight or ten mammateeks or wigwams, each intended to contain from six 

 to eighteen or twenty people, are distinctly seen close together. Besides these there are 

 the remains of a number of summer wigwams. Every winter wigwam has close by it a 

 small, square-mouthed or oblong pit dug in the earth about four feet deep, in which to 

 preserve their stores, etc. Some of these pits were lined with birch rind. We discovered 

 also in this village the remains of a vapour bath. The method used by the Beothiks to 

 raise the steam was by pouring water on lai-ge stones made very hot for the purpose by 

 burning a quantity of wood around them. After this process the ashes were removed, 

 and a hemispherical frame work, closely covered with skins to exclude the external air, 

 was fixed over these stones. The patient then crept in under the skins, taking with him 

 a birch-rind bucket of water and a small bark dish with which to pour it on the stones, 

 and to enable him to raise the steam at pleasure." 



" At Hall's Bay we got no useful information from the three (and three only) English 

 families settled ; indeed we could hardly have expected any. For these and such people 

 have been the unchecked and ruthless destroyers of the tribe, the remnants of which we 

 were in search of After sleeping one night in a house we again struck into the country 

 to the westward. 



" In five days we were in 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 southerly more than thirty 

 miles. "We looked out for two days from the summits of the hills trying to discover the 



1 Doubtful. 



- Lescarbot describes the Micmacs as liaving the .same process, and it is common among many tribes of 

 America. Shanandithit explained that thoy used it principally with old people for the cure of rheumatism. 



