I 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE WOODS. 319 
Whilst the squirrels were roasting on a fork¬ 
ed stick stuck in the ground, and bent over the 
fire, one of the Indians went into the woods, and 
brought out several small boughs of a tree, ap¬ 
parently of the willow tribe. Having carefully 
scraped the bark off from these, he made a sort 
of frame with the twigs, in shape somewhat 
like a gridiron, and heaping upon it the scraped 
bark, placed it over the fire to dry. When it 
was tolerably crisp he rubbed it between his 
hands, and put it up in his pouch for the pur¬ 
pose of smoking. 
The Indians smoke the bark of many dif¬ 
ferent trees, and a great variety of herbs and 
leaves besides tobacco. The most agreeable of 
any of these substances which they smoke are the 
leaves of the sumach tree, rhus-toxicodendron. 
This is a graceful shrub, which bears leaves 
somewhat similar to those of the ash. To¬ 
wards the latter end of autumn they turn of a 
bright red colour, and when wanted for smok¬ 
ing are plucked oft' and dried in the sun. 
Whilst burning they afford a very agreeable 
perfume. These leaves are very commonly 
smoked, mixed with tobacco, by the white 
people of the country ; the smoke of them by 
themselves alone is said to be prejudicial to the 
lungs. The sumach tree bears tufted bunche^ 
of crimson flowers. One of these bunches 
dipped lightly, for a few times, into a bowl of 
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