{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. Sometimes it happens,
that they have a large River or Lake to pass over, and the Weather
is very foggy, as it often happens in the Spring and Fall of the Leaf;
so that they cannot see which Course to steer:
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