154 BARON LA HONTAN — NATIVE TRIBES. 



or towns of the Tahuglauk with great numbers of little calves, which 

 they take in the above-mentioned mountain ; and that the Tahug- 

 lauk make use of these calves for several ends ; for they not only 

 eat their flesh, but bring 'em up to labour, and make clothes, boots, 

 &c. of their skins. They added, that it was their misfortune to 

 be took prisoners by the Gnacsitares with war, which had lasted for 

 eighteen years ; but that they hoped a peace would be speedily 

 concluded, upon which the prisoners would be exchanged, pursuant 

 to the usual custom. I could pump nothing further out of 'em, 

 with relation to the country, commerce, and customs of that remote 

 nation : all they could say was that the great river of that nation 

 runs along westward, and that the salt lake into which it falls is 

 three hundred leagues in circumference and thirty in breadth, its 

 mouth stretching a great way to the southward." " I would have 

 fain satisfied my curiosity, in being an eyewitness of the manners 

 and customs of the Tahuglauk, but that being impracticable, I 

 was forced to be instructed at secondhand by these Mozeemlek 

 slaves ; who assured me upon the faith of a savage that the Ta- 

 huglauk wear their beards two fingers' breadth long ; that their 

 garments reach down to their knees ; that they cover their heads 

 with a sharp-pointed cap ; that they always wear a long stick or 

 cane in their hands, which is tipped, not unlike what we use in 

 Europe ; that they wear a sort of boot upon their legs which reach 

 up to their knee ; that their women never show themselves, which 

 perhaps proceeds from the same principle that prevails in Italy 

 and Spain ; and in fine, that this people are always at war with the 

 puissant nations that are seated in the neighbourhood of the 

 lake, but withal that they never disquiet the strolling nations that 

 fall in their way by reason of their weakness — an admirable lesson 

 for some princes in the world, who are so much intent upon the 

 making use of the strongest hand. This was all I could gather 

 upon that subject. My curiosity prompted me to desire a more 

 particular account ;* but unluckily I wanted a good interpreter : 



* On that part of the map which is confessedly derived from Indian authority 

 is the following note : — "A map drawn upon stag-skins by y^ Gnacsitares, who gave 

 me to know y® latitudes of all ye places marked in it, by pointing to y^ respective 

 places of ye heavens that one or t'other corresponded to ; for by this means I 

 could adjust ye latitude to half a degree or little more; having first received 

 from them a computation of ye distances in fazons, each of which I compute to 

 be three long French leagues." 



