36 THE INDIAN ENCAMPMENT. 



of wild turkeys and slices of peccary hams. Several 

 quarters of venison, spitted on a couple of wooden spits, 

 grilled above the largest fire, whose cinders spluttered 

 and crackled as they were moistened by the fat. We 

 had neither dishes nor forks ; but each, with his hunter's 

 knife, cut himself a hunch of venison, dipping each 

 morsel into a small cup filled with salt and pepper. 



I must here do justice to the cookery of the Pawnees : 

 this ragout, and its lordly accompaniment of venison, 

 seasoned by the air of the prairies, appeared to me as 

 delicious and as appetizing as any masterpiece ever in- 

 vented and executed by a Careme or a Francatelli. Our 

 only beverage was coffee, boiled in a caldron, sweetened 

 with yellow cassonada, and poured out in cups of pewter. 



Soon the twilight gave way to night's deep darkness, 

 and the camp presented a picturesque spectacle, which 

 artists would have contemplated with pleasure. Scattered 

 fires flamed or flickered in the midst of the trees, and 

 round the glowing embers the Indians clustered, some 

 seated, and others stretched on the turf, enveloped in 

 their ample cloaks. 



For myself, I listened, well pleased, to the stories of 

 the Pawnees, who were gathered round me, and who, 

 with their fantastic babble, beguiled the monotony of the 

 watch, by repeating 



" Tales as strange, 



As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change, 

 As any that the wandering tribes require, 

 Stretched in the desert round their evening fire." 



Legends abound among the Indians, whose supersti- 

 tious veneration for the phenomena of nature exceeds 

 everything which the imagination of an European could 

 invent. One of them asserted that the hunters often 



