66 
VIRGINIAN DEER, 
for the sake of subsistence, but to habituate them- 
selves to fatigue, that they may make the better 
warriors. Those who fail in the sports of the field 
are never supposed to be capable of supporting the 
hardships of a campaign ; they are degraded to 
ignoble offices, such as dressing the skins of the 
deer, and other employs allotted only to slaves and 
women. 
ee When a large party,” says Mr. Pennant, “ me- 
ditates a hunting-match, which is usually at the be-- 
ginning of winter, they agree on a place of ren- 
dezvous, often five hundred miles distant from their 
homes, and a place, perhaps, that many of them 
had never been at. They have no other method of 
fixing on the spot than by pointing with their 
finger. The preference is given to the eldest, as 
the most experienced. 
“ When this matter is settled they separate into 
small parties, travel and hunt for subsistence all the 
day, and rest at night: but the women have no cer- 
tain resting-places. The savages have their par- 
ticular hunting-countries ; but if they invade the 
limits of those belonging to other nations, feuds en- 
sue, fatal as those between Percy and Douglas in 
the famed Chevy Chase. 
“ As soon as they arrive on the borders of the 
hunting-country, (which they never fail doing to a 
man, be their respective routes ever so distant or so 
various) the captain of the band delineates on the bark 
of a tree his own figure, with a rattle-snake twined 
