INDIAN COFFEE. a8 
floor was laid in puncheons—logs hewn on one side. He had 
hewed enough to cover‘all but a four feet square hole in the 
centre, this was left open, and being convenient, was used as 
a receptacle for offal and a lounging place for dogs, of which 
I subsequently ascertained there are always a host. about 
every Indian house. One can judge of the atmosphere of 
such a place.—Here they ate, drank and slept, and as 
philosophers say that man’s comfort consists in his idea of 
what constitutes comfort, managed to live. 
One of the squaws made coffee in an iron skillet, stirring it 
with an oaken paddle; when poured out it was of the consis- 
tency of corn gruel, but having called for it, I gulped it down 
for fear of giving offence, and paying my dime took my depar- 
ture ; my opinion, however, formed at the time, I have had no 
occasion to change from subsequent observations among them. 
Our road, after leaving the prairie, ran over a sugcession of 
rough stony hills, covered with low oak trees, In descending 
one, the foremost wagon was disabled by the breaking of an 
axle-tree, and as the road was too narrow to pass, we were 
obliged to look out for camping ground, where there was 
water and grass to last until the damage could be repaired. 
These we found a quarter of a mile in advance, in a 
swamp, on the banks of the Brazil; so unbitching our oxen 
and unsaddling horses, we prepared to encamp. Shorily 
after a severe rain storm set in, so that with wet, gnats 
and mosquitoes, &c., the evening promised to be anything 
but pleasant, when just as we began to = el very melan- 
