and a pie of a grey color and sufficiently disgusting in appearance. To refuse a savage who offers you food in his own cabin would be considered a grave affront. " Well, well," I said to myself, "you are not in Belgium; let us begin our apprenticeship in earnest, and so long as we are in the woods, howl heartily with the wolves." A dozen or more dogs, sitting on their hams in front of me, with their eyes fastened on my dish, seemed really to envy me my happiness as I approached my spoon to it, and to be offering their aid and assistance in case of need. But it was not necessary to have recourse to my canine company; I had a good appetite and the stew was excellent, a buffalo tongue with a good gravy of bear fat, mixed with flour from the wild sweet potato. I thanked my hostess, and handed her dish back much cleaner than I had received it.
It is sorrowful to see the neglected condition of the little children in all the Indian villages. Their hair seems never to have undergone the operation of the brush, so that their heads look like masses of cobwebs. Many have eye trouble, and their faces and all their limbs look as if water had never touched them. The younger ones are generally naked, and great was the alarm which my presence occasioned among this juvenile portion of the community, wherever I presented myself without warning. The dogs in these villages (all belonging to the wolf family) are the greatest torments to a stranger; the barking of one brings all the others together, of all sizes; they form a chorus, utter piercing yelps and roars and follow you in all directions.
The men seem to pass their time in complete idleness: playing cards and smoking are their only amusements. They subsist the greater part of the time on a small quantity of dried meat and a mush made of roasted and pounded corn. But this temperance and frugality are the result of necessity, not of choice, for when they have abundance you will see them thrust their whole hands into the pot and eat incessantly like starving wolves until they are