190 THE CLAM. 
The stronghold opens, and the clam drinks draught 
after draught of the cool life-giving air; then down 
upon him the savage pounces, and astonishes his 
heated 4nd fevered imagination by thrusting, with 
all her force, the long sharp stick mto the un- 
guarded house: crash it goes through the quiver- 
ing tissues; his chance is over! Jerked off the 
heated stones, pitilessly his house is forced open ; 
ropes, hinges, fastenings crack like packthread, 
and the mollusc is ruthlessly dragged from his 
shelly home, naked and lifeless. 
Having got the clam out, the next thing 
is to preserve it for winter: this is effectually 
accomplished by stringing-up and smoking. A 
long wooden needle, with an eye at the end, is 
threaded with cord made from native hemp; 
and on this the clams are strung like dried 
apples, and thoroughly. smoked, in the interior of 
the lodge. A more effectual smoking-house could 
hardly be found. I can imagine nothing in the 
‘wide, wide world’ half as filthy, loathsome, and 
disgusting as the interior of an Indian house. 
Every group has some eatable—fish, molluse, 
bird, or animal—and what the men and squaws 
do not consume, is pitched to the dusky little 
savages, that, naked and dirty, are thick as ants 
in a hill; from these the residue descends to the 
