402              TRAVELS   IN
to watch the fruit when it is ripe. All the timber confifls in two up-rights and one crofs pole; it is covered with a matted roof, but this is well lined within by a quantity of bark. The inner fpace is rather below the level of the ground, and the entrance by a little fide-door; in the middle of the hut is the fire-place, from which the fmoke af-cends by an opening in the roof. On each fide of the fire, are raifed two branches, which run the length of the hut, and ferveto fleep on; thefe are covered with ikins and bark. Befide the favage who fpoke French, in this hut, there was afquah, the name given to the Indian women, who had taken him as her fecond, and was bringing up a child by her firft hufband; two old men compofed the remainder of the family, which had a melancholy and poor appearance. The fquah was hideous, as they all are, and her hufband almoft ftupid, fo that the charms of this fociety did not make me forget that the day was advancing, and that it was time to fet out. All that I could learn from the Colonel, or from the favages was, that the State gives them rations of meat, and fome-
times