284 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
and longer still ago, by the Thames and Seine, and they 
now help to make the soil where private and public gar¬ 
dens, mansions and palaces arp. We could not get fir 
twigs for our bed here, and the spruce was harsh in com¬ 
parison, having more twig in proportion to its leaf, but 
we improved it somewhat with hemlock. The Indian 
remarked as before, “ Must have hard wood to cook 
moose-meat,” as if that were a maxim, and proceeded to 
get it. My companion cooked some in California fashion, 
winding a long string of the meat round a stick and 
o o o 
slowly turning it in his hand before the fire. It was very 
good. But the Indian not approving of the mode, or 
because he was not allowed to cook it his own way, would 
not taste it. After the regular supper we attempted to 
make a lily soup of the bulbs which I had brought along, 
for I wished to learn all I could before I got out of the 
woods. Following the Indian’s directions, for he began 
to be sick, I washed the bulbs carefully, minced some 
moose-meat and some pork, salted and boiled all together, 
but we had not patience to try the experiment fairly, for 
he said it must be boiled till the roots were completely 
softened so as to thicken the soup like flour; but though 
we left it on all night, we found it dried to the kettle in 
the morning, and not yet boiled to a flour. Perhaps the 
roots were not ripe enough, for they commonly gather 
them in the fall. As it was, it was palatable enough, 
but it reminded me of the Irishman’s limestone broth. 
The other ingredients were enough alone. The Indian’s 
name for these bulbs was Sheepnoc. I stirred the soup 
by accident with a striped maple or moose-wood stick, 
which I had peeled, and he remarked that its bark was 
an emetic. 
He prepared to camp as usual between his moose-hide > 
