My First Summer 



dians I have seen are not a whit more natural 

 in their lives than we civilized whites. Per- 

 haps if I knew them better I should like 

 them better. The worst thing about them is 

 their uncleanliness. Nothing truly wild is un- 

 clean. Down on the shore of Mono Lake I saw 

 a number of their flimsy huts on the banks of 

 streams that dash swiftly into that dead sea, 

 - mere brush tents where they lie and eat 

 at their ease. Some of the men were feast- 

 ing on buffalo berries, lying beneath the tall 

 bushes now red with fruit. The berries are 

 rather insipid, but they must needs be whole- 

 some, since for days and weeks the Indians, it 

 is said, eat nothing else. In the season they in 

 like manner depend chiefly on the fat larva? 

 of a fly that breeds in the salt water of the 

 lake, or on the big fat corrugated caterpil- 

 lars of a species of silkworm that feeds on the 

 leaves of the yellow pine. Occasionally a 

 grand rabbit-drive is organized and hundreds 

 are slain with clubs on the lake shore, chased 

 and frightened into a dense crowd by dogs, 



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