To Its First Cries
She Remains Insensible, As She Believes Them To Arise Only From
The Inconvenience Of A Situation,
To which she knows it must be inured.
But if its plaints continue, and she supposes it to be in
Want of food,
she ceases her fishing and clasps it to her breast. An European spectator
is struck with horror and astonishment at their perilous situation,
but accidents seldom happen. The management of the canoe alone appears
a work of unsurmountable difficulty, its breadth is so inadequate
to its length. The Indians, aware of its ticklish formation, practise
from infancy to move in it without risk. Use only could reconcile them
to the painful position in which they sit in it. They drop in the middle
of the canoe upon their knees, and resting the buttocks on the heels,
extend the knees to the sides, against which they press strongly,
so as to form a poise sufficient to retain the body in its situation,
and relieve the weight which would otherwise fall wholly upon the toes.
Either in this position or cautiously moving in the centre of the vessel,
the mother tends her child, keeps up her fire (which is laid on a small patch
of earth), paddles her boat, broils fish and provides in part the subsistence
of the day. Their favourite bait for fish is a cockle.
The husband in the mean time warily moves to some rock, over which he can peep
into unruffled water to look for fish.
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