TRAVELS Xftf 
454 
day and night in the fummer or moderate feafon $ 
the children and females however are feldom or 
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 facerdotal affairs; 
but they are extremely pidturefque or caricature, 
as men in variety of attitudes, 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. Thefe de- 
figns are not ill executed ; the outlines bold, free, 
and well proportioned. The pillars fupporting the 
front or piazza of the council-houfe of the fquare, 
are ingeniouOy formed in the likertefs of vaft 
fpeckled ferpents afcending upwards ; the Ottaffes 
being of the fnake family or tribe. At this time 
the town was failing, taking medicine, and I think 
I may fay praying, to avert a grievous calamity 
of ficknefs, which had lately afflicted them, and 
laid in the grave abundance of their citizens. They 
fait feyen or eight days, during which time they 
eat or drink nothing but a meagre gruel, made of 
O O O J 
a little corn flour and waters taking at the fame 
time by way of medicine or phyfic, a ftrong de- 
codlion of the roots of the Iris verficolor, which 
is a powerful cathartic : they hold this root in 
high eftimation, every town cultivates a little plan- 
tation of it, having a large artificial pond, juft 
without the town, planted and almoft overgrown 
with it, where they ufually dig clay for pottery, 
and mortar and plafler for their buildings, and I 
pbferved where they had lately been digging up 
this root. 
In 
