•286 
WANDERINGS IN 
FOURTH 
JOU RNEY, 
and time it had cost me to make a ball, I could 
account for this Indian’s expedition in no other 
way, except, that being an inhabitant of the forest, 
he knew how to go about his work in a much shorter 
way than I did. His ball, to be sure, had very 
little elasticity in it. I tried it repeatedly, but it 
never rebounded a yard high. The young Indian 
watched me with great gravity, and when I made 
him understand that I expected the ball would 
dance better, he called another Indian, who knew a 
little English, to assure me that I might be quite 
easy on that score. The young rogue, in order to 
render me a complete dupe, brought the new moon 
to his aid. He gave me to understand that the ball 
was like the little moon, which lie pointed to, and 
by the time it grew big and old, the ball would 
bounce beautifully. This satisfied me, and I gave 
him the fish-hooks, which he received without the 
least change of countenance. 
I bounced the ball repeatedly for two months 
after, but I found that it still remained in its infancy. 
At last I suspected that the savage (to use a vulgar 
phrase) had come Yorkshire over me; and so I 
determined to find out how he had managed to take 
me in. I cut the ball in two, and then saw what a 
taught trick he had played me. It seems he had 
chewed some leaves into a lump, the size of a walnut, 
and then dipped them in the liquid gum-elastic. It 
immediatelv received a coat about as thick as a six- 
pence. He then rolled some more leaves round it, 
and gave it another coat. He seems to have con- 
