If They Are Caught In Theft They Are Slaves Till They Repay
The Person, (As I Mention'd Before) But To Steal From The English
They Reckon No Harm.
Not but that I have known some few Savages
that have been as free from Theft as any of
The Christians.
When they have a Design to lie with a Woman, which they cannot obtain
any otherwise than by a larger Reward than they are able to give,
they then strive to make her drunk, which a great many of them will be;
then they take the Advantage, to do with them what they please,
and sometimes in their Drunkenness, cut off their Hair and sell it
to the English, which is the greatest Affront can be offer'd them.
They never value Time; for if they be going out to hunt, fish,
or any other indifferent Business, you may keep them in talk
as long as you please, so you but keep them in Discourse, and seem pleased
with their Company; yet none are more expeditious and safer Messengers
than they, when any extraordinary Business that they are sent about
requires it.
{Not pass over a Tree.}
When they are upon travelling the Woods, they keep a constant Pace,
neither will they stride over a Tree that lies cross the Path, but always
go round it, which is quite contrary to the Custom of the English,
and other Europeans. {Cut with a Knife how. A Knife of Reed.}
When they cut with a Knife, the Edge is towards them, whereas we
always cut and whittle from us. {Not left-handed.} Nor did I ever see
one of them left-handed. {Get Fire how.} Before the Christians
came amongst them, not knowing the Use of Steel and Flints,
they got their Fire with Sticks, which by vehement Collision,
or Rubbing together, take Fire. This Method they will sometimes practise now,
when it has happen'd thro' rainy Weather, or some other Accident,
that they have wet their Spunk, which is a sort of soft corky Substance,
generally of a Cinnamon Colour, and grows in the concave part of an Oak,
Hiccory, and several other Woods, being dug out with an Ax,
and always kept by the Indians, instead of Tinder or Touch-wood,
both which it exceeds. You are to understand, that the two Sticks
they use to strike Fire withal, are never of one sort of Wood,
but always differ from each other.
They are expert Travellers, and though they have not the Use
of our artificial Compass, yet they understand the North-point exactly,
let them be in never so great a Wilderness. One Guide is a short Moss,
that grows upon some Trees, exactly on the North-Side thereof.
{Indian Compass.}
Besides, they have Names for eight of the thirty two Points,
and call the Winds by their several Names, as we do; but indeed more properly,
for the North-West Wind is called the cold Wind; the North-East the wet Wind;
the South the warm Wind; and so agreeably of the rest.
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