Oct. 26, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
651 

“{ embrace this opportunity of paying a 
ublic testimony of my gratitude for your 
iany favors to me. Permit me also to cele- 
rate your public spirit, your zealous and faith- 
wl service of your country, your social and 
5mestic virtues, etc., which have endeared 
ou to all your acquaintance, and to all who 
ive heard your names, and make you more 
ustrious than can any high sounding titles. 
ill who know you will readily acquit me of 
rvility and flattery in this address. Dedica- 
jons founded on these motives are the dis- 
race of literature, and an insult to com- 
ion sense. There are too many instances 
‘ this prostitution in Great Britain for it to 
> suffered in America. Numbers of high- 
ated patrons are praised for their divine wis- 
om and godlike virtues, and yet the whole 
inpire is discontented, and America in strong 
mvulsions. 
“May you long enjoy your usual calm and 
‘osperity! that so the widow, the fatherless, 
id the strangers may always joyfully return 
is in past years) from your hospitable 
»uses—while this dedication stands as a small 
oof of that sincere attachment with which I am 
antlemen, Your most obedient, Humble Ser- 
int.” 
,Adair’s observations on the Indians began 
rout 1735, but it was not until nearly nine 
vars later that he began to put on paper the 
jaterial that he had been absorbing. He com- 
,ains that his work was carried on far from 
e conversation of the learned, and from any 
)raries; that it was frequently interrupted by 
‘isiness; that to avoid the natural jealousy 
id suspicion of the natives he was often 
ireed to conceal his papers; and lastly, that 
ie Indians were very secretive and close- 
‘outhed as to their own affairs, while very 
iquisitive and prying as to the affairs of 
|hers; so that there was no possibility of re- 
ement among them. Nevertheless, he has 
iven us a picture, and a very complete pic- 
Ire, of Indians as they really were; as he says 
himself: “My intentions were pure when 
wrote, truth hath been my standard, and I 
|ve no sinister or mercenary views in pub- 
|hing.’ He has given us facts, and facts of 
e greatest interest; and if occasionally he 
jes to bend these facts to support his theories 
1y then it is the business of the modern 
ader to sift the true from the false. 
The first half of the volume, which is a 
|}ndsome quarto, consists almost entirely of 
servations and arguments to prove that the 
nerican Indians are descended from the 
No less than twenty-three such reasons 
e here given, the whole filling nearly 200 
ges. 
jin this first half of the book are a vast num- 
r of truthful observations on the red man’s 
stoms as compared with those of the 
cient Jews, and each custom common to 
imitive man is made to bolster up the 
|thor’s argument. 
The second half of the book is devoted to 
n account of the Kathba, Cheerake, Mus- 
ghe or Creeks, Choktahs, and Chikkosoh 
tions, with occasional remarks on their laws, 
d the conduct of our governors, superin- 
idents, missionaries, etc.” Following this 
ime more than twenty pages of general ob- 
rvations on the North American Indians; 
d last, an appendix containing descriptions 

lws. 

of new regions and recommendations as to 
the government of the country. Though Adair 
has much to say about the customs of the 
Indians, yet it is evident that he spent most 
of his time in their villages, and was himself 
no hunter. He has much to say about their 
subsistence, but only a little to tell us of their 
hunting; and yet at this time it would seem 
as though the buffalo must have occupied the 
country he lived in, for he described the 
flesh of that and other game in the following 
language: 
“Buffalo flesh is nothing but beef of a 
coarser grain, though of a sweeter taste than 
the tame sort: elk flesh has the like affinity 
to venison. The deer are very fat in winter, 
by reason of the great quantities of chestnuts, 
and various sorts of acorns, that cover the 
boundless woods. Though most of the traders 
who go to the remote Indian countries have 
tame stock, as already described, and are very 
expert at fire-arms and ranging the woods a- 
hunting; yet every servant that each of them 
fits out for the winter’s hunt, brings home to 
his master a large heap of fat barbecued bris- 
kets, rumps and tongues of buffalo and deer, 
as well as plenty of bear ribs, which are piled 
on large, racks. These are laid up and used 
not for necessity, but for the sake of variety. 
The traders carry up also plenty of chocolate, 
coffee, and sugar, which enables them, with 
their numberless quantity of fowls, eggs, fruit, 
etc., to have puddings, pies, pastries, fritters 
and many other articles of the like kind, in as 
great plenty as in the English settlements. 
Several of the Indians produce sugar out of 
the sweet maple tree, by making an incision, 
draining the juice and boiling it to a proper 
consistence.” 
Evidently he was more of an angler than a 
hunter; or what is more likely, he was neither. 
But the Indians among whom he lived sub- 
sisted more on fish than they did on game. 
Some of their methods of taking fish are thus 
detailed: 
“When they see large fish near the surface 
of the water, they fire directly upon them, 
sometimes only with powder, which noise and 
surprise, however, so stupefies them, that they 
instantly turn up their bellies and float a-top, 
when the fisherman secures them. If they 
shoot at fish not deep in the water, either with 
an arrow or bullet, they aim at the lower part 
of the belly, if they are near; and lower, in 
like manner, according to the distance, which 
seldom fails of killing. In a dry summer 
gather horse chestnuts, and dif- 
ferent sorts pounded 
pretty fine and steeped a while in a trough, 
they scatter this mixture over the surface of 
a middle-sized pond, and stir it about with 
poles till the water is sufficiently impregnated 
with the intoxicating bittern. The fish 
soon inebriated, and make to the surface of 
the water with their bellies uppermost. The 
fishers gather them in baskets, and barbecue 
the largest, covering them carefully over at 
night to preserve them from the supposed 
putrifying influence of the moon. It seems 
that fish catched in this manner are not pois- 
oned, but only stupefied; for they prove very 
frequently use 
season they 
of roots, which having 
are 
wholesome food to who 
them. By experiments, when they are speedily 
moved into good water, they revive in a few 
minutes. . 
us, 
“The Indians have the art of catching fish in 
long crails, made with canes and hickory splin- 
ters, tapering to a point.. Phey lay these at 
a fall of water, where stones are placed in 
two sloping lines from each bank, till they 
meet together in the middle of the rapid 
stream, where the intangled fish are soon 
drowned. Above such a place I have known 
them to fasten a wreath of long grapevines 
together, to reach across the river, with stones 
fastened at proper distances to rake the bot- 
tom; they will swim a mile with it whooping 
and plunging all the way, driving the fish be- 
fore them into their large cane pots. With 
this draught, which is a very heavy one, they 
make a town feast, or feast of love, of which 
every one partakes in the most social manner, 
and afterward they dance together, singing 
Halelu-yah, and the rest of their usual praises 
to the divine essence, for His bountiful eifts to 
the beloved people. Those Indians who are 
unacquainted with the use of barbed irons, are 
very expert in striking large fish out of their 
canoes with long sharp-pointed green canes, 
which are well bearded, and hardened in the 
fire. In Savannah River I have often accom- 
panied them in killing sturgeons with those 
green swamp harpoons, and which they did 
with much pleasure and ease; for, when we dis- 
covered the thrust into their 
bodies one of the harpoons. As the fish would 
immediately strike deep, and rush away to 
the bottom very rapidly, their strength was 
soon expended by their violent struggles 
against the buoyant force of the green darts; 
as soon as the top end of them appeared again 
on the surface of the water we made up to 
them, renewed the attack, and in like manner 
continued it till we secured our game. 
“They have a surprising method of fishing 
fish, we soon 
der the edges of rocks that stand over deep 
un 1 
There, they pull off their 
places of a river. 
red breeches, or their long slip of stroud cloth, 
and wrapping it round their arm, so as to 
reach to the lower part of the palm of their 
right hand, they dive under the rock, where 
the large catfish lie to shelter themselves from 
the scorching beams of the sun, and to watch 
for prey. As soon as those fierce aquatic an- 
imals see that tempting bait, they immediately 
seize it with the greatest violence, in order to 
swallow it. Then is the time for the diver to 
improve the favorable opportunity; he acct rd- 
ingly opens his hand, seizes the voracious fish 
by his tender parts, hath a sharp struggle with 
: rock, and at last 
the Choktah, 
above 
it against the crevices of the 
brings it safe Except 
all our Indians, both male and female, 
the state of infancy, are in the watery element 
by prac- 
ashore. 
nearly equal to amphibious animals, 
tice; and from the experiments necessity has 
forced them to, it seems as if few were endued 
abilities—very few 
with such strong natural 
can equal them in their wild situation of life. 
“There is a favorite method among them 
of fishing with hand-nets. The nets are about 
three feet deep, and of the same diameter at 
the opening, made of hemp and knotted after 
the usual manner of our nets. On each side 
of the mouth they tie very securely a strong 
elastic green cane, to which the ends are fas- 
tened. Prepared these, the warriors 
abreast jump in at the end of a long pond, 
with 
swimming under water with their net stretched 
(Continued on page 676.) 

