PORTER’S JOURNAL 
6,7 
with expedition and neatness; every man appeared to be master 
of his business, and every tribe appeared to strive which should 
complete their house with most expedition and in the most per* 
feet manner. 
When the village was completed I distributed among them 
several harpoons, and as usual gave them an opportunity of con¬ 
tending for old iron hoops; all were perfectly happy and contented, 
and it was the cause of great pleasure to Gattanewa and his peo¬ 
ple that I praised the house they had built above all the rest. 
It seems strange how a people living under no form of govern¬ 
ment that we could ever perceive, having no chiefs over them who 
appear to possess any authority, having neither rewards to stimu¬ 
late them to exertion nor dread of punishment before them, should 
be capable of conceiving and executing, with the rapidity of light¬ 
ning, works which astonished us; they appear to act with one 
mind, to have the same thought, and to be operated on by the same 
impulse; they can be compared only to the beaver, whose instinct 
teaches them to design and execute works much claim our ad¬ 
miration. Of all the labour which most surprised me that of 
carrying the gun to the mountains seemed the greatest. I have 
since, with much difficulty, and at the hazard of breaking my neck, 
travelled the path by which it was carried, or rather I have scram¬ 
bled along the sides of the precipices, and have climbed the al¬ 
most perpendicular rocks and mountains to the summits of which 
they succeeded in raising it; and I never should have believed it 
possible that a people so devoid of artificial means of assisting la¬ 
bour, should have been able to perform a task so truly herculian. 
I inquired by what manner they had divided the labour among 
themselves in order that each might share his proportion of it. 
They told me they had carried it by valleys, that is, the people of 
one valley, ha<? agreed to take it a certain distance, when it was 
to be received and carried on by those of another valley, and so on 
to the top of the mountain. This was all the information I could 
obtain on the subject; no doubt they had recourse to some mode 
of apportioning the labour among themselves; for it was observ¬ 
ed that they, from time to time, relieved each other, and that 
some were occupied solely in the transportation of the carriage. 
The gun was brought down again, without any desire being ex- 
VOt. II. K 
