June.] THEIR SIMPLICITY AND IGNORANCE. 
4S 
morning, returned in the afternoon, bringing three 
females with them, one of whom had a child 
tied on her back. They sat down, at some yards 
distance from any of our parties, in a row, with 
evident suspicion, hardly uttering a word, and 
seldom looking towards us. I made them some 
presents of trinkets, flesh, and tobacco. They 
silently received what was given, and then made 
a fire, at which the men lighted their pipes. While 
smoking they observed our m^n cutting down 
some large branches from the trees to form an 
inclosure for the cattle during the night, but 
finding it would surround them as well as us, 
they rose hastily and went to the outside of the 
fence, where after sitting half an hour they 
quietly retired. While they remained we em- 
ployed Sedrass, the interpreter, to tell them the 
leading truths of the , scriptures, to which they 
listened, but made no remark. Had we not 
been there it is very probable that our Mashows 
and Matchappees would have murdered every 
one of them. We returned them the five mats 
which the former had stolen from them in the 
morning. Though they happened to sit down at 
the side of those mats on their arrival, and must 
have known they were theirs, they took not the 
least notice of them; notwithstanding that the 
weather was cool they were scantily clothed, but 
covered all over with ingrained dirt, which had 
