My Indian's First And Last Thought Was Of His Stomach.
While capable
of passing two or three days without eating, and feeling no pangs of
hunger, yet, when food was to hand, he gorged himself, and could put
away an incredible amount.
Truly, his make-up was a constant wonder
to me. Riding through the "hungry belt" I would be famishing, but to
my question: "Are you hungry?" he would answer, "No." After a
toilsome journey, and no supper at the end: "Would you like to eat?"
"No." But let an ostrich or a deer come in sight, and he could not
live another minute without food! Another proof to Yantiwau of my
incapacity was the fact that when my matches were all used I could
not light the fire. He, by rubbing a blunt-pointed hard stick in a
groove of soft wood, could cause such a friction that the dust would
speedily ignite, and set fire to the dry twigs which he was so clever
in collecting. Although such a simple process to the Indian, I never
met a white man who could use the firesticks with effect.
Sitting by the camp-fire in the stillness of evening, my guide would
draw attention to a shooting star. "Look! That is a bad witch
doctor," he would say. "Did you notice he went to the west? Well, the
Toothlis live there. He has gone for vengeance!"
The wide palm plains are almost uninhabited; I have journeyed eighty
miles without sighting human being or wigwam.
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