Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/227

 to this tribe; they subsist exclusively on small animals, such as big-horns, goats, bucks; but especially on the porcupine, which swarms in this region. When pressed by {151} hunger, they have recourse to roots, seeds, and the inner bark of the cypress tree. They own few horses, and perform all their journeys on foot.

Their hunters set out early in the morning, kill all the game they meet, and suspend it to the trees, as they pass along,—their poor wives, or rather their slaves, often bearing two children on their backs, and dragging several more after them, tardily follow their husbands, and collect what game the latter have killed. They had a long file of famished dogs, loaded with their little provisions, etc. Every family has a band of six to twelve of these animals, and each dog carries from 30 to 35 lbs. weight. They are the most wretched animals in existence; from their tender-hearted masters and mistresses they receive more bastinados than morsels, consequently they are the most adroit and incorrigible rogues to be found in the forest. Every evening we find it necessary to hang all our property upon the trees, beyond the reach of these voracious dogs. We are even compelled to barricade ourselves within our tents at night, and surround them with boughs of trees; for, whatever is of leather, or whatever has pertained to a living being, these crafty rogues bear away, and devour. You will say I have little charity {152} for these poor brutes—but be not astonished. One fine evening, having neglected the ordinary precaution of blocking up the entrance of my tent, I next morning found myself without shoes—with a collarless cassock—and minus one leg to my culottes de peau!!! One of the chiefs of this little camp recounted to me, that last winter, one of his nation, having been reduced to extreme famine, (and such cases are not rare,) had eaten successively,