60 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
youths brought in the meat on large wooden trenchers. The venison of 
former days was now replaced by beef, which, it is only just to say, for 
flavour and tenderness did credit to the caterers. Although I had been 
present at a somewhat similar feast on a former occasion, after a dance at 
the “gréen-corn festival,” I had felt some curiosity to see how the large 
company now present—numbering nearly three hundred—would be com- 
fortably fed, without dishes or other appliances. On the former occasion 
most of the guests had brought their tin pannikins or basins with them, 
but here there was nothing of the sort. The hosts, however, understood 
their business. A dozen large flour-sacks were brought, filled with loaveg 
of good wheaten bread. Several of the younger chiefs, including my 
friend, the interpreter, drew forth their knives and set to work to cut up 
both bread and meat into generous slices, adapted to appetites which had 
undergone the strain of eight mortal hours of song and oratory. After 
the Virgilian fashion, the fragment of bread formed a dish, on which the 
section of meat was laid, and thus, delicately enough, each guest received 
his or her portion. Then followed pails of very good lemonade, which 
was carried round and served, with glass goblets, to each person present. 
They did me the honour of presenting the first glass to me, as the princi- 
pal guest. Those who wished for corn-soup went to the kettles and took it 
with the dippers or ladles which were provided for the purpose. The whole 
company, now much increased by a crowd of young people who had come 
in when the provisions appeared, was served in a surprisingly short time, 
and without the slightest disorder. The young chiefs and other attend- 
ants did their ministering deftly and quietly. The people kept their 
seats, and conversed in subdued tones. No public dinner or tea-party of 
their fastidious white neighbours was ever conducted with more propriety 
and good-breeding than this simple banquet of these self-respecting chil- 
dren of the soil. 
It was now getting late, nearly eleven o’clock, and at the conclusion 
of the supper most of the elders and the children quietly withdrew. The 
younger men and women remained, and the removal of the kettles and 
some of the benches showed that the dances were about to begin. As I 
had seen this performance under more favourable circumstances, I did 
not wait for it, but summoning the faithful Peter, whose smiling face 
showed his perfect enjoyment of the occasion, I took leave of my friend 
Skanawati, who remained at his post as “ master of the feast,’’ and sought 
our conveyance in the neighbouring grove. As we were preparing to 
start, the loud chant of the musicians, the rhythmical beat of the tortoise- 
shell rattles, timing the dance, and the vigorous stamp of manly feet 
upon the well-worn floor of the hall, announced that the social amuse- 
ment with which the Indians delight to finish their councils had begun. 
For some distance on our way we could see the lights gleaming brightly 
through the windows of the Long-House, and hear the musical clamour 
of the merry-making chorus. 
