THEIR CURIOSITY—BATHING. 5D 
The Yurok are a very lively, curious, and inquisitive race. One who 
travels afoot, dressed in the plain garb necessary amid the scraggy thickets 
of California, will find them making themselves very familiar with him— 
sometimes to his amusement, often to his great disgust. They had the 
greatest curiosity respecting myself and my business. They scrutinized 
every article of my apparel, and men who understood them said they always 
discussed in detail, and with great minuteness, every stranger’s coat, hat, 
boots, trousers, etc., and tried thus to conjecture his occupation. They 
wanted to purchase my clothes, they wanted to swap handkerchiefs, they 
wanted to peep into my traveling-bag. Waxing presently more familiar, 
they would feel the quality of my cloth, stroke it down, ask what it cost 
a yard, clasp my arm to test my muscle, and then encourage me with the 
sententious and comprehensive remark, ‘“‘ Bully for you!” They turned up 
my boots to inspect the nails and soles of the same; they wanted to try on 
my coat, and, last and worst of all, the meddlesome rascals wanted to try 
on my trousers! 
Sometimes, when wandering on the great, ferny, wind-swept hills of 
the coast, keeping a sharp weather-eye out for the trail, I have seen a half- 
dozen tatterdemalion Yurok, engaged in picking saldl-berries, when they 
saw me, quit their employment with their fingers and. lips stained gory-red 
by the juice, and come rushing down through the bushes with their two 
club-queues bouncing on their shoulders and laughing with a wild lunatic 
laugh that made my hair stand on end. But they were never on “butcher 
deeds” intent, and never made any foray on me more terrible than the insinu- 
ating question, ‘Got any tobac.?” 
Filthy as they are they do not neglect the cold morning bath until 
they have learned to wear complete civilized suits. On the coast I have 
seen the smooth-skinned, pudgy, shock-pated fellows, on one of those leaden 
foggy mornings of that region, crawl on all-fours out of their wretched 
huts which were cobbled up of driftwood, take off the narrow breech- 
cloths which were their only coverings, and dip up the chilly brine over 
them with their double-hands letting it trickle all down their swarthy bodies 
in a manner that made me shiver to see. The sexes bathe apart, and the 
women do not go into the sea without some garment on. 
