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/253

 *cased in a thin covering of ice. On getting released I rolled a blanket about me, and ran back to the bed-room, in which I had previously ordered a good fire, and in a few minutes I experienced a warm glow all over my body. Chilling and disagreeable as these matinal ablutions were, yet, as I found them so beneficial, I continued them for twenty-five days, at the expiration of which my physician was pleased to say that no more were necesary, and that I had done my duty like a wise man. I was never after troubled with a rheumatic pain! One of our old Canadians, who had been labouring many years under a chronic rheumatism, asked the Indian if he could cure him in the same manner: the latter replied it was impossible, but that he would try another process. He accordingly constructed the skeleton of a hut about four and a half feet high, and three broad, in shape like a bee-hive, which he covered with deer-skins. He then heated some stones in an adjoining fire, and having placed the patient inside in a state of nudity, the hot stones were thrown in, and water poured on them: the entrance was then quickly closed, and the man kept in for some time until he begged to be released, alleging that he was nearly suffocated. On coming out he was in a