354 
WE CONCLUDE TO EAT. 
rinsing out the foi was c'cklenihj clean: there was no fault 
to be found with iL I began to think that some of us 
might partake of their cooking, after all. 
We asked them where they had got their pot from, and 
were told that a whale-ship had presented it to them 
many years back in exchange for a mountain-elk that 
they had carried on board, and that they Avould like to 
* carry another mountain-elk on board of a ship and bring 
another pot on shore. So we entered into such an agree- 
ment, to our mutual joy. 
Their next proceeding was to haul several halves of 
fine-looking salmon out of a greasy-looking sealskin bag, 
which they cut into pieces as long as one's hand, on a 
clean piece of board, washed well in a pail of water, 
packed into the pot, added a pint or so of water, sprinkled 
a little salt over all, (they collect salt from crevices in the 
rocks along the sea-shore at low-water and after a hot 
sun has shone for some hours,) put on the broken lid, 
and finally hung it on the pot-hook, where it soon began 
to simmer away in fine style and give forth an odour 
that was any thing but unpleasant. The fact of tlie fish 
liaving been taken from a grcasy-looking sealskin bag 
was the only dra\vback to our appetite; and that was 
speedily overcome, for we liad walked over many heavy 
miles, and it was long pUvst our usual dinner-hour. 
When the headman, therefore, took half of the lid oft' 
and picked out a piece for each one, which he put upon 
fragments of the ‘‘New' York Herald’' that one of us had 
carried along, we all held out our hands as he passed 
around, and fell to wmrk, — cautiously at first, but, finally, 
with a most hearty wdll. The natives, too, attacking 
