Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/251

 and underneath kettles were placed to receive the juice. This was afterwards boiled down to the consistency of molasses, and was used with our tea as a substitute for sugar: it is a bitter sweet, and answered its purpose tolerably well.

The Flat-heads are a healthy tribe, and subject to few diseases. Common fractures, caused by an occasional pitch off a horse, or a fall down a declivity in the ardour of hunting, are cured by tight bandages and pieces of wood like staves placed longitudinally around the part, to which they are secured by leathern thongs. For contusions they generally bleed, either in the temples, arms, wrists, or ancles, with pieces of sharp flint, or heads of arrows: they however preferred being bled with the lancet, and frequently brought us patients, who were much pleased with that mode of operation. Very little snow fell after Christmas; but the cold was intense, with a clear atmosphere. I experienced some acute rheumatic attacks in the shoulders and knees, from which I suffered much annoyance. An old Indian proposed to relieve me, provided I consented to follow the mode of cure practised by him in similar cases on the young warriors of the tribe. On inquiring the method he intended to pursue, he replied that it merely consisted in getting up