TRAVELS IN 
454 
day and night in the fnmmer or moderate feat on 4 
the children and females however are feldom ov 
never feen in the public fquare. 
The pillars and walls of the houfes of the 
fquare are decorated with various paintings and 
fculptures ; which I fuppofe to be hieroglyphic, 
and as an hiftoric legendary of political and fa- 
cerdotal affairs : but they are extremely pidtu- 
Tefque or caricature, as men in variety of atti- 
tudes, fome ludicrous enough, others having the 
head of fome kind of animal, as thofe of a duck, 
turkey, bear, fox, wolf, buck, &c. and again 
thofe kind of creatures are reprefented having 
the human head. Thele defigns are not ill exe- 
cuted ; the outlines bold, free and well propor- 
tioned. The pillars fupporting the front or piazza 
of the council-houfe of the fquare, are ingeni- 
oufly formed in the likengfs of vaft fpeckled fer- 
pents, afcending upwards; the Ottalfes being of 
the fnake family or tribe. At this time the town 
was fafting, taking medicine, and I think I may 
fay praying, to avert a grievous calamity of fick- 
nefs, which had lately affinfted them, and laid in 
the grave abundance of their citizens. They fall 
feven or eight days, during which time they eat 
or drink nothing but a meagre gruel, made of a 
little corn-flour and water ; taking at the fame 
time by way of medicine or phyfic, a ftrong de- 
coction of the roots of the Iris verficolor, which 
is a powerful carthartic : they hold this root in 
high eftimation, every town cultivates a little, 
plantation of it, having a large artificial pond, 
juft without the town, planted and almoft over- 
grown with it, where they ufually dig clay for 
pottery, and mortar and pi after for their build- 
ings, and I obferved where they had lately been 
digging up this root. t, 4 
