INDIAN DEXTERITY; MS 
Caution necessary in navigating them is to sit 
steady. I have seen a dozen people go securely 
in one, which might be easily carried by a 
single able-bodied man. When an Indian 
takes his family to any distance in a conoe, the 
women, the girls, and boys, are furnished each 
with a paddle, and are kept busily at work; 
the father of the family gives himself no trou¬ 
ble but in steering the vessel. 
: The Indians that are connected with the 
traders have now, very generally, laid aside 
bows and arrows, and seldom take them into 
their hands, except it be to amuse themselves 
for a few hours* when they have expended 
their powder and shot i their boys, however, 
still use them universally, and some of them 
shoot with wonderful dexterity. I saw a young 
Shawnese chief, apparently not more than ten 
years old, fix three arrows riinning in the body 
of a small black squirrel, on the top of a very 
tall tree, and during an hour or two that I fol¬ 
lowed him through the woods, he scarcely 
missed his mark half a dozen times. It is 
astonishing to see with what accuracy, and at, 
the same time with what readiness, they mark 
the spot where their arrows fall. They will 
shoot away a dozen arrows or more, seemingly 
quite careless about what becomes of them, and 
as inattentive to the spot where they fall as if 
they never expected to find them agjet 
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