Promises were of no
avail; the smallest present gratification is preferred to the certainty
of ample reward at another period; an unfailing indication of strong
animal passions and a weak understanding. On our compliance with their
demand they departed.
The next day I went to the Warrior's tent distant about eleven miles. The
country was materially changed: the pine had disappeared and gentle
slopes with clumps of large poplars formed some pleasing groups: willows
were scattered over the swamps. When I entered the tent the Indians
spread a buffalo robe before the fire and desired me to sit down. Some
were eating, others sleeping, many of them without any covering except
the breechcloth and a blanket over the shoulders, a state in which they
love to indulge themselves till hunger drives them forth to the chase.
Besides the Warrior's family there was that of another hunter named
Long-legs whose bad success in hunting had reduced him to the necessity
of feeding on moose leather for three weeks when he was compassionately
relieved by the Warrior. I was an unwilling witness of the preparation of
my dinner by the Indian women. They cut into pieces a portion of fat
meat, using for that purpose a knife and their teeth. It was boiled in a
kettle and served in a platter made of birch bark from which, being
dirty, they had peeled the surface. However the flavour of good moose
meat will survive any process that it undergoes in their hands except
smoking.
Having provided myself with some drawing materials I amused the Indians
with a sketch of the interior of the tent and its inhabitants. An old
woman who was relating with great volubility an account of some quarrel
with the traders at Cumberland House broke off from her narration when
she perceived my design, supposing perhaps that I was employing some
charm against her; for the Indians have been taught a supernatural dread
of particular pictures. One of the young men drew with a piece of
charcoal a figure resembling a frog on the side of the tent and, by
significantly pointing at me, excited peals of merriment from his
companions. The caricature was comic, but I soon fixed their attention by
producing my pocket compass and affecting it with a knife. They have
great curiosity which might easily be directed to the attainment of
useful knowledge. As the dirt accumulated about these people was visibly
of a communicative nature I removed at night into the open air where the
thermometer fell to 15 degrees below zero although it was the next day 60
degrees above it.
In the morning the Warrior and his companion arrived; I found that,
instead of hunting, they had passed the whole time in a drunken fit at a
short distance from the tent.
