BAEON LA HONTAN'S LAKE OF SALT WATER. 163 



him four hundred of his own subjects and four Mozeemlek savages, 

 whom I took for Spaniards. My mistake was occasioned by the 

 great difference between these two American nations ; for the 

 Mozeemlek savages were clothed, they had a thick bushy beard, and 

 their hair hung down under their ears ; their complexion was 

 swarthy, their address was civil and submissive, their mien grave, 

 and their carriage engaging. Upon these considerations I could 

 not imagine that they were savages, though, after all, I found my- 

 self mistaken. These four slaves gave me a description of their 

 country, which the Gnacsitares represented by way of a map upon 

 a deer's skin, as you see it drawn in this map. Their villages 

 stand upon a river that springs out of a ridge of mountains, from 

 which the Long Kiver likewise derives its source, there being a 

 great many brooks there, which, by a joint confluence, form the 

 river." 



" The Mozeemlek nation is numerous and puissant. The four 

 slaves of that country informed me that at the distance of one 

 hundred and fifty leagues from the place I then was, their prin- 

 cipal river empties itself into a salt lake of three hundred leagues 

 in circumference, the mouth of which is two leagues broad ; that 

 the lower part of that river is adorned with six noble cities, sur- 

 rounded with stone cemented with fat earth; that the houses of; 

 these cities have no roofs, but are open above, like a platform, as 

 you see them drawn in the map ; that besides the above-mentioned 

 cities, there are above an hundred towns, great and small, round 

 that sort of sea, upon which they navigate with such boats as you 

 see drawn in the map ;* that the people of that country made 

 stuffs, copper axes, and several other manufactures, which the 

 Outagamis and my other interpreters could not give me to under- 

 stand, as being altogether unacquainted with such things ; that 

 their government was despotic, and lodged in the hands of one 

 great head, to whom the rest paid a trembling submission ; that the 

 people upon that lake are called Tahuglauk, and are as numerous 

 as the leaves of trees, (such is the expression that the savages use 

 for an hyperbole ;) that the Mozeemlek people supply the cities 



* The boats, with a drawing, are thus described in the map : — " The vessels used 

 by the Tahuglauk, in which two hundred men may row, provided they are such 

 forms as y^ Mozeemlek people drew me on y® bark of trees. According to my com- 

 putation, such a vessel must be one hundred and thirty feet long from the prow to 

 the stern." 



