THE ST. LAWRENCE ISLANDS. 105 



sure, that these islanders are as clean in their 

 persons as in their domestic arrangements ; only, 

 that they, like the Otdians, have a very nasty 

 employment. A pretty young woman, who sat 

 opposite to me, laid her husband's head in her 

 lap, to cleanse it from the vermin, and when she 

 found any thing, she immediately bit it, and then 

 swallowed it ; it appears, that the women have the 

 exclusive privilege of this chace. The inhabitants 

 of the Aleutian Islands are said to have formerly 

 had this custom ; and on the N.W. coast of Ame- 

 rica, races of people are still found, v.ho con- 

 tinue to practise it. 



A fire was ligjited before the hut, to prepare the 

 dinner, and I saw, on this occasion, for the first 

 time, how they produce it. A piece of soft wood is 

 rubbed with a piece of hard-pointed wood, till a 

 kind of groove is produced in the first ; the dust 

 caused by it supplies the place of tinder; and when 

 the rubbing has increased the heat so as to take 

 fire, they blow it up, and hold dried grass over 

 it. Before the cook prepared the meal, he washed 

 his hands; after he had finished his work, he spread 

 a mat, set before us boiled fish of a good taste, and 

 baked bread-fruit on clean leaves. Labadeny first 

 tasted every thing, made a short speech, of which 

 I did not understand any part, and then gave me 

 the sign to begin. Only he, his old mother, and 

 myself, were allowed to sit at our table; tlie trea- 

 surer, and another man, with whose office J ajii not 



