THE KED KIVER EXPEDITION. 279 



his gun would stalk off to the other side, leaving his 

 wife or wives, as the case might be, and perhaps his 

 mother, to carry over the canoes and all their worldly 

 goods. 



We were once pointed out an old woman who some 

 years ago had supported life, when in a starving con- 

 dition, by eating human flesh by no means an ex- 

 traordinary or unusual occurrence amongst those 

 people when in such straits. She was certainly a 

 most loathsome creature to look at ; her face was so 

 deeply wrinkled, and the wrinkles so full of dirt, that 

 she seemed as if tattooed. 



We generally spared these poor creatures a little 

 from our ration : whatever we gave them was put into 

 a pot, in which was boiled together pork, flour, blue- 

 berries, fish, biscuit, &c., &c. No two things could 

 be too incongruous to be boiled at the same time. 

 They never roast, grill, or stew, boiling being their 

 sole idea of the culinary art. They were very fond 

 of the water in which the pork was boiled, drinking 

 it freely, as if it was some delicious beverage. They 

 generally carried in their canoes a fish -skin bottle 

 filled with sturgeon -oil, of which they took copious 

 draughts at times. The women wear their hair in 

 one long plait hanging down behind, the men in two, 

 very often joined at the ends. So very beardless are 

 the men, that when one meets a canoe with Indians 

 sitting in it, there might often be difficulty in distin- 

 guishing the sexes, if it were not for this variety in 



