Some Of These Pits Were Lined With Birch-Rind.
We Discovered Also In This Village The Remains Of A Vapour-Bath.
The
method used by the Boeothicks to raise the steam, was by pouring water
on large stones, made very
Hot for the purpose, in the open air, by
burning a quantity of wood around them; after this process, the ashes
were removed, and a hemispherical frame-work, closely covered with
skins, to exclude the external air, was fixed over the stones. The
patient then crept in under the skins, taking with him a
birch-rind-bucket of water, and a small bark-dish to dip it out,
which, by pouring on the stones, enabled him to raise the steam at
pleasure[A].
At Hall's Bay we got no useful information from the three (and the
only) English families settled there. Indeed we could hardly have
expected any; for these, and such people, have been the unchecked and
ruthless destroyers of the tribe, the remnant of which we were in
search of. After sleeping one night in a house, we again struck into
the country to the westward.
In five days we were on the high lands south of White Bay, and in
sight of the high lands east of the Bay of Islands, on the west coast
of Newfoundland. The country south and west of us was low and flat,
consisting of marshes, extending in a southerly direction more than
thirty miles. In this direction lies the famous Red Indians' Lake. It
was now near the middle of November, and the winter had commenced
pretty severely in the interior. The country was everywhere covered
with snow, and, for some days past, we had walked over the small ponds
on the ice. The summits of the hills on which we stood had snow on
them, in some places many feet deep. The deer were migrating from the
rugged and dreary mountains in the north to the low mossy barrens and
more woody parts in the south; and we inferred, that if any of the Red
Indians had been at White Bay during the past summer, they might be at
that time stationed about the borders of the low tract of country
before us, at the deer-passes, or were employed somewhere else in
the interior, killing deer for winter provision. At these passes,
which are particular places in the migration lines of path, such as
the extreme ends of, and straights in, many of the large lakes, - the
foot of valleys between high or rugged mountains, - fords in the large
rivers, and the like, - the Indians kill great numbers of deer with
very little trouble, during their migrations. We looked out for two
days from the summits of the hills adjacent, trying to discover the
smoke from the camps of the Red Indians; but in vain. These hills
command a very extensive view of the country in every direction.
We now determined to proceed towards the Red Indians' Lake, sanguine
that, at that known rendezvous, we would find the objects of our
search.
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