144 TRAVELS THROUGH LOWER CANADA : 
t 
time I have never known them once to miss 
their aim, at the distance often or fifteen yards, 
although they shot at the little red squirrels, 
which are not half the size of a rat; and with 
such wonderful force used they to blow forth 
the arrows, that they frequently drove them 
up to the very thistle-down through the heads 
of the largest black squirrels. The effect of 
these guns appears at first like magic. The 
tube is put to the mouth, and in the twinkling 
of an eye you see the squirrel that is aimed at 
fall lifeless to the ground; no report, not the 
smallest noise even, is to be heard, nor is it 
possible to see the arrow, so quickly does it fly, 
until it appears fastened in the body of the 
animal. 
The Seneka is one of the six nations which 
formerly bore the general name of the Iroquois 
Indians. Their principal village is situated on 
Buffalo Creek, which falls into the eastern 
extremity of* Lake Erie, on the New York 
shore. We took the ship’s boat one morning, 
and went over to visit it, but all the Indians, 
men, women, and children, amounting in all 
to upwards of six hundred persons, had, at an 
early hour, gone down to Fort Niagara, to 
partake of a feast which was there prepared for 
them. .We walked about in the neighbour- 
hood of the village, dined on the grass on some 
cold provisions that we had taken with us, and 
in the evening returned. 
