208                                   VAN   DEB. DONCK's
sweating and drinks ; but the latter they take very sparingly. Their sweating places are made of clay, and enclosed tight in the earth, with a small entrance to admit the patients within the apartments. Where the place is needed there many stones are heated, and placed around and within the same ; and then the patient enters and sits down, naked and singing, wherein he remains as long as it is possible to endure the heat, and on leaving the stewing apartment, they usually lay down in cold spring water. By those means they say that they gain relief, and cure most diseases. They can heal fresh wounds and dangerous bruises in a most wonderful manner. They also have remedies for old sores and ulcers, and they also cure venereal affections so readily, that many an Italian master who saw it, would be ashamed of his profession. All their cures are made with herbs, roots and leaves, (with the powers of which they are acquainted,) without making any compounds. Still it must be admitted that nature assists them greatly, for they indulge in no excesses of eating or drinking, otherwise they could not accomplish so much with such simple and small means. When any of them are very sick, and they apprehend the disease to be of a deadly character; then, they all, or at least the nearest relatives of the sick persons, have recourse to devil-hunting or driving, and make noise enough to frighten a person in extremity to death; which they say they do to learn from the devil ¦whether the patient will live or die, and when hope of recovery is given^ what remedies are to be used for the restoration of the sick. They seldom however receive any positive answers, but directions to use remedies, and when their hope for the recovery of the sick, then food is presented to the person, who is persuaded to eat heartily, whether the food is relished or not.
Of their Agriculture, Planting, and Gardening.
All their agriculture is performed by their women. The men give themselves very little trouble about the same, except those who were old. They, with the young children will do some labor under the direction of the women. They cultivate no wheat, oats, barley or rye, and know nothing of ploughing, spading and spitting up the soil, and are not neat and cleanly in their fields. The grain which they raise for bread, and mush or sapaen, is maize or turkey-corn, and they raise various kinds of beans as before remarked. They also plant tobacco for their own use, which is not as good as ours, and of a different kind, that does not require as much labour and attendance. Of garden vegetables, they raise none, except pumpkins and squashes, as before observed. They usually leave their fields and garden spots open, unenclosed, and unprotected by fencing, and take