394 
THEIR ARTICLES OF TRAFFIC. 
list; but, unfortunately for us of tlie “old John/’ they 
had neglected doing so the season wo were there. 
All that we found them able to trade with us for were, 
firs%, fish without end; secondly, three small bullocks; 
thirdly, some three or four gallons of milk ; fourthly, 
several hundred Siberian squirrel-skins ; fifthly and 
lastly, the coarser skins of the black bear, the rein- 
deer, and another animal, whose name I forget. In 
addition to these, there were various articles of dress 
that they would gladly have exchanged; but, as most 
of them had been worn, we did not do much in that 
line. One very pretty girl I remember in particular, 
who, having fallen in love with a red silk handkerchief 
that I had purposely flaunted before her eyes, offered 
me every thing about her house, even to a pair of richly- 
worked buckskin moccasins, made long like a boot and 
having embroidered strings with which to tic them 
over the knee. She pointed to the largo house of the 
headman, and made signs, as she measured one of them 
along her foot to show how it fitted, that she had only worn 
them upon one occasion, and that was when a number 
of whalers had landed with a fiddle and they had had a 
feast and a dance under its hospitable roof, and that 
they were not the least the worse for wear. There was 
only one way for me to get over this species of argu- 
ment, and that was by putting my foot alongside of 
hers, and asking, by signs, what manner of use they 
could ever prove to me. And to this she replied by 
flinging them into a corner and snatching at the hand- 
kerchief with a determined, “ have-it-whether-or-no-Tom- 
Collins’' air that spoke her disappointment more strongly 
