FOURTH JOURNEY. 



261 



dered his services, and asked two handfuls of fish-hooks 

 for his trouble. 



Off he went, and, to my great surprise, returned in a 

 very short time. Bearing in mind the trouble and time 

 it had cost me to make a ball, I could account for this 

 Indian's expedition in no other way, except that, being 

 an inhabitant of the forest, he knew how to go about • 

 his work in a much shorter way than I did. His ball, 

 to be sure, had very little elasticity in it. I tried it 

 repeatedly, but it never rebounded a yard high. The 

 young Indian watched me with great gravity; and when 

 I made him understand that I expected the ball would 

 dance better, he called another Indian, who knew a 

 little English, to assure me that I might be quite easy 

 on that score. The young rogue, in order to render me 

 a complete dupe, brought the new moon to his aid. 

 He gave me to understand that the ball was like the 

 little moon, which he pointed to, and by the time it 

 grew big and old, the ball would bounce beautifully. 

 This satisfied me, and I gave him the fish-hooks, which 

 he received without the least change of countenance. 



I bounced the ball repeatedly for two months after, 

 but I found that it still remained in its infancy. At 

 last I suspected that the savage (to use a vulgar phrase) 

 had come Yorkshire over me, and so I determined to 

 find out how he had managed to take me in. I cut the 

 ball in two, and then saw what a taut trick he had 

 played me. It seems he had chewed some leaves into 

 a lump, the size of a walnut, and then dipped them in 

 the liquid gum-elastic. It immediately received a coat 

 about as thick as a sixpence. He then rolled some 

 more leaves round it, and gave it another coat. He 

 seems to have continued this process, till he had made 



