SOURCE  0E  ST.  JETER'S  RIVER.                     11
formed their encampment at an early hour, owing to a very heavy and continued rain; at this place, they were overtaken by the gentlemen who had gone out with Wa-notan, and were much interested by the recital of his address and success in hunting. These gentlemen had likewise killed a couple of calves, which gave us an opportunity of tasting the buffalo veal; we found it good, but not to be compared to the beef of that animal. The Indians, we believe, never kill the calves when they can help it. We saw one of these little creatures that had been brought to Lake Travers, and which they intended to domesticate; it was a male calf, about two or three months old, of a uniform dun colour \ the hump had not yet begun to form; it almost continually made a grunting noise, not unlike that of a hog. A domestic cow nourished it without discovering any thing more than occasional uneasiness at its hard sucking, though at first she submitted only through force. The squaws at Wanotan's lodge were engaged in jerking the meat and dressing the skins which he had obtained. We had some curiosity to observe their mode of operating. The meat was cut up in thin and broad slices and exposed on poles, all round the lodge. Two days of exposure to a hot sun are sufficient to dry the meat so that it will keep. The skins are dressed in a very simple manner ; the green skin is stretched on the ground by means of stakes driven through its edges; then with a piece of bone, sharpened to a cutting edge, about an inch wide, and similar to a chisel, the softer portions on the flesh side are scraped off, and with an instrument of iron similar to the bit of a carpenter's plane, the hair is removed from the outside. If the operation be interrupted here, the product is a sort of parchment; but if the skin be intended for moccassins or clothing, it is then worked with the hands