170 OUR HUMBLE HELPERS 



wheel to give them a regular outline. Thick, mis- 

 shapen, unsteady, they had an uneven surface and 

 bore the finger-marks of those who had molded them. 

 Some attempts at ornamentation appeared on the 

 best jars, and took the form of a row of imprints 

 made with the end of the thumb on the still soft clay, 

 or a line of angular marks engraved with a thorn. 

 The rest of the work was not less simple. To give 

 our pottery, however slight its value, more consist- 

 ency and hardness, we bake it in a very hot oven ; we 

 also coat it with a glaze to make it impermeable. 

 The inhabitants of the lake villages were content to 

 expose their pu s of wet clay to the rays of the sun 

 until dry, without baking or glazing. Hence it was 

 a sorry kind of pottery, good for the keeping of pro- 

 visions, but incapable of holding water or of being 

 used over the fire." 



"How did they manage, then," asked Jules, "to 

 get hot water and cook their food!" 



"When one is unprovided with the invaluable 

 saucepan, when one is without even those homely 

 utensils that we think so little of, despite the ines- 

 timable service they render us, one imitates the Es- 

 kimos of Greenland, who cook their viands in a little 

 skin bag. ' ' 



"But that queer kind of pot would burn on the 

 fire," asserted Emile. 



"They are very careful not to put it on the fire. 

 Stones are heated red-hot in the fire, and after they 

 are thus heated they are popped into the little bag 

 containing water and food to be cooked. After cool- 



