390 
RURAL HOURfe. 
they consider dainties. * When they intend to go a great 
distance on a hunting expedition, or to war, * * they pro- 
vide themselves severally with a small bag of parched corn or 
meal ; * a quarter of a pound is sufficient for a day's sub- 
sistence. When they are hungry they eat a small handful of tlie 
meal, after which they take a drink of water, and they are so well 
fed, that they can travel a day. When they can obtain fish or 
meat to eat, then their meal serves them as well as fine bread 
would, because it needs no baking." Speaking of their feasts, he 
says : "On extraordinary occasions, wlien they wish to entertain 
any person, then they prepare beavers' tails, bass-heads, with 
parched corn-meal, or very fat meat stewed, with shelled chest- 
nuts, bruised." — Not a bad dinner, by any means. Thus we see 
that while they relied on the maize in times of scarcity and fatigue, 
it made a principal part of their every- day fare, and entered into 
their great feasts also ; but potatoes do not appear at all. 
In using the word sapaen, Vanderdonck leads one to believe it 
either a provincialism of the New Netherlands, or an Indian word. 
Very possibly it may have been borrowed from the red man, like 
the quaasiens or squash. There is, however, a word which cor- 
responds to our English sup, to swallow Avithout mastication, 
which in Saxon is zupan; the Dutch are said to have a word sim- 
ilar to this, and sapaen may prove a provincialism derived from it. 
A regular Hollander could probably decide the question for us. 
Samp> for cracked corn ; homimj for grain more coarsely cracked ; 
and succotash for beans and maize boiled together, are all consid- 
ered as admitted Indian words. Mush is derived from the German 
Musse, for pap, and probably has reached us througli tlie Dutch. 
Thursday, 23c?. — Thanksgiving-day. Lovely weather; beau- 
