THE DIVIDING LINE. 
35 
top, and covered so well with bark as to be proof against all weather. Tiie 
fire is made in the middle, according to the Hibernian fashion, the smoke 
whereof finds no other vent but at the door, and so keeps the whole family- 
warm, at the expense both of their eyes and complexion. The Indians have 
no standing furniture in their cabins but hurdles to repose their persons 
upon, which they cover with mats and deer-skins. We were conducted to 
the best apartments in the fort, which just before had been made ready for 
our reception, and adorned with new mats, that were very sweet and clean. 
The young men had painted themselves in a hideous manner, not so much 
for ornament as terror. In that frightful equipage they entertained us with 
sundry war dances, wherein they endeavoured to look as formidable as possi- 
ble. The instrument they danced to was an Indian drum, that is, a large 
gourd with a skin braced tight over the mouth of it. The dancers all sang to 
the music, keeping exact time with their feet, while their heads and arms 
were screwed into a thousand menacing postures. Upon this occasion the 
ladies had arrayed themselves in all their finery. They were wrapped in 
their red and blue match coats, thrown so negligently about them, that their 
mahogany skins appeared in several parts, like the Lacedaemonian damsels of 
old. Their hair was braided with white and blue peak, and hung gracefully 
in a large roll upon their shoulders. 
This peak consists of small cylinders cut out of a conch shell, drilled 
through and strung like beads. It serves them both for money and jewels, 
the blue being of much greater value than the white, for the same reason 
that Ethiopian mistresses in France are dearer than French, because they 
are more scarce. The women wear necklaces and bracelets of these pre- 
cious materials, when they have a mind to appear lovely. Though their 
eomplexions be a little sad-coloured, yet their shapes are very strait and well 
proportioned. Their faces are seldom handsome, yet they have an air of 
innocence and bashfulness, that with a little less dirt would not fail to make 
them desirable. Such charms might have had their full effect upon men who 
had been so long deprived of female conversation, but that the whole winter’s 
soil was so crusted on the skins of those dark angels, that it required a very 
strong appetite to approach them. The bear’s oil, with which they anoint 
their persons all over, makes their skins soft, and at the same time protects 
them from every species of vermin that use to be troublesome to other un- 
cleanly people. We were unluckily so many, that they could not well make 
us the compliment of bed-fellows, according to the Indian rules of hospitality, 
though a grave matron whispered one of the commissioners very civilly in 
the ear, that if her daughter had been but one year older, she should have 
been at his devotion. 
It is by no means a loss of reputation among the Indians, for damsels 
that are single to have intrigues with the men ; on the contrary, they account 
it an argument of superior merit to be liked by a great number of gallants. 
However, like the ladies that game, they are a little mercenary in their 
amours, and seldom bestow their favours out of stark love and kindness. But 
after these women- have once appropriated their charms by marriage, they 
are from thenceforth faithful to their vows, and will hardly ever be tempted 
by an agreeable gallant, or be provoked by a brutal or even by a careless 
husband to go astray. The little work that is done among the Indians is 
done by the poor women, while the men are quite idle, or at most employed 
only in the gentlemanly diversions of hunting and fishing. In this, as well 
as in their wars, they use nothing but fire-arms, which they purchase of the 
English for skins. Bows and arrows are grown into disuse, except only 
amongst their boys. Nor is it ill policy, but on the contrary very prudent, 
Jthus to furnish the Indians with fire-arms, because it makes them depend 
