74 S/'OK TING A 1) I ' 



gulped down like so many wild animals. The novelty of the 

 affair was highly appreciated, however, as the scene was 

 exceedingly interesting, and would have delighted the soul of 

 an artist ; for, in the same groups, could be seen old men 

 and women whose skins were like rumpled parchment, and 

 whose hones were apparently so brittle, that any attempt to use 

 them in walking or other exercise would result in an instanta- 

 neous breaking, and young bucks and squaws who were ideal 

 representatives of savage strength and ugliness. The lurid glare 

 of the fires on their faces ; the darkness that reigned about 

 them; the scantiness and tawdriness of their costumes ; the 

 mingling of all ages and sexes; and the crunching of bones or 

 tearing of meat between the fingers, made such a scene as 

 could not be witnessed outside the United States in all proba- 

 bility, and one which even there would be worth travelling far 

 to behold. Although my arm ached badly I went about among 

 the groups and enjoyed the romantic strangeness of the picture 

 they presented so much that it was long past midnight ere I 

 retired to rest. 



When the feasting was over the young braves indulged in 

 rude songs and dances, but the latter were all alike, consisting 

 simply in jumping around in a circle and grunting as if they 

 had a bad stomach-ache. Every dance wound up with a 

 tremendous scream or wanvhoop in which all used the 

 utmost power of their lungs to the best advantage. The 

 squaws and old men looked on with approval at the terpsi- 

 chorcan evolutions of the warriors, and the latter sometimes 

 gave them a word of encouragement or rated them for not 

 performing a certain dance in a proper manner. Some of the 

 braves related their own great deeds in the hunting-field, or 

 those of their ancestors on the war-path, during the intervals 

 between the dances, and these were frequently interrupted 

 with the approbative intonations o ce naw"\>y the auditors. 

 "When my comrade and myself left the encampment the 

 orators and terpsichoreans were under full headwav, and, I 

 doubt not, kept up their frolic; until morning, as they seemed 

 bent on seeing it out. Their wild cries reached our tent 



