BASKETS AND CANOES. 47 
are every whit as clean, comfortable, and substantial as the Sennhiitten, 
wherein is made the world-famous Emmenthaler cheese, for I have been 
inside of both. And yet, when I saw the swarthy Yurok creeping on all- 
fours out of their round door-holes, or sticking their shock-pates up through 
the hatchway of the assembly chamber, just on a level with the earth, I 
thought of black bears as often as anything. 
From willow twigs and pine roots they weave large round mats, for 
holding acorn flour; various sized, flattish, squash-shaped baskets, water- 
tight; deep, conical ones, of about a bushel capacity, to be carried on their 
backs; and others, to be used at pleasure as drinking-cups or skull-caps 
(for the squaws only, the men wear nothing on their heads), in which 
latter capacity they fit very neatly. They ornament their baskets with 
some ingenuity by weaving in black rootlets or bark in squares, diamonds, 
or zigzag lines, but they never attempt the curve (which seems to mark the 
transition from barbaric to civilized art), or the imitation of any object in 
nature. 
In earrying her baby, or a quantity of acorns, the squaw fills the deep, 
conical basket, and suspends it-on her back by a strap which passes loosely 
around it and athwart her forehead. She leans far forward and so relieves 
her neck; but I have seen the braves carry heavy burdens for miles, walk- 
ing quite erect, though they showed they were not accustomed to the 
drudgery, by clasping their hands behind their heads to ease their necks of 
the terrible strain. 
As the redwood grows only along the Lower Klamath, the Yurok have 
a monopoly of making canoes, and they sell many to the Karok.- A canoe 
on the Klamath is not pointed like the Chippewa canoe, but the width at 
either end is equal to the tree’s diameter. On the great bar across the mouth 
of the river, and all along the coast for eighty miles there are tens of thou- 
sands of mighty redwoods cast up on the strand, having been either floated 
down by the rivers or grubbed down by the surf. Hence the Indians are 
not obliged to fell any trees, and have only to burn them into suitable 
lengths. In making the canoe they spread pitch on whatever place they 
wish to reduce, and when it has burned deep enough they clap on a piece of 
raw bark and extinguish the fire. By this means they round them out. with 
