Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/78

60 ashes, lying on the ground with their feet on it, and tearing like wild beasts with their teeth. After their fish is boiled, they turn it out on a mat, or, if they have not got one readily, on the ground, and collect round it like a pack of hounds, devouring dirt and all. Their mode of boiling fish, vegetables, etc., is rather singular, and deserves to be related. They put whatever is to be cooked into a basket, and, nearly filling it with water, place it on the ground; they then proceed to boil or sodden it, by putting in red-hot stones (of which they have a number for the purpose) in quick succession, until the victuals are done to their satisfaction.

The chief employment of the men is to hunt and fish; they are, however, generally speaking, very lazy, and their young men lie basking in the sun, on the sides of the river, for hours together. The women and girls are employed in making hats, mats, etc., and in collecting berries and wood. These people have not the least notion of tilling the ground; they trust to Providence for every thing, and derive their chief support from the river and sea. They collect plenty of berries and fish in summer to last them through the winter. The former they preserve by mixing them up with salmon or seal oil, and, making them into lumps, set them to dry in the sun. When sufficiently dry, they are laid by in boxes and baskets for winter. The salmon they cure by splitting it up into four slices, and running splinters of wood across them. These they also dry in the sun, and then hang them up in the