lawson's history 65 



English wife teaches her husband more English 

 in one nisrht than a school master can in a week. 



TVe saw at the Caffetta's cabin the strangest 

 spectacle of antiquity I ever knew, it being an old 

 Indian squah, that had I been to have guessed at 

 her age, by her aspect, old Parr's head (the Welch 

 Methusalem) was a face in swadling clouts to hers. 

 Her skin hung in reaves like a bag of tripe. By 

 a fair competition, one might have justly thought 

 it would have contained three such carcasses as 

 hers then was. She had one of her hands con- 

 tracted by some accident in the fire, they sleeping 

 always by it, and often Ml into sad disasters, espe- 

 cially in their drunken moods. I made the strict- 

 est enquiry that was possible, and by what I could 

 gather, she was considerably above one hundred 

 years old, notwithstanding she smoked tobacco 

 and eat her victuals, to all appearances, as hearti- 

 ly as one of eighteen. One of our company spoke 

 some of their language, and having not quite for- 

 gotten his former intrigues with the Indian lasses, 

 would have been dealing with some of the young 

 female fry ; but they refused him, he having noth- 

 ing that these girls esteemed. 



At night we were laid in the king's cabin, where 

 the queen and the old squah piged with us. The 

 former was very much disfigured with tetters, and 

 veiy reserved, which disappointed our fellow- 

 traveler in his intrigues. 



The women smoke much tobacco, (as most In- 

 diums do.) They liave pipes whose heads arc cut 



