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Show 154 BARON LA HONTAN- NATIVE TRIBES. or towns of the Tahuglank with great numbers of little calves, which they take in the above- mentioned mountain; and that the Tahug-lauk make use of these calves for seveval ends; for they not only eat . their flesh, but bring ' em up to labour, jand make clothes, boots, & c. of their skins. They added, that it was their misfortune to be took prisoners by the Gnacsitares with war, which had lasted for eighteen years; but that they hoped a peace would be. speedily concluded, upon which tbe prisoners jrould be exchanged, pursuant to the usual custom. I could pump'nothing further out of.' em, with relation to the country, commerce, and customs of thfet remote nation: all they could say was that the great river of that nation runs along westward, and thit the salt lake into which it falls is three hundred leagues in circumference and thirty in breadth, its mouth stretching a great way to the southward." • " I would have fain. satisfied my curiosity, in being an eyewitness of the manners and customs of the Tahuglauk, but that being impracticable, I was. forced to be instructed at secondhand by these Mozeemlek slaves; who assured me upon the faith of a savage that the Ta-hilglattk wear their beards two fingers' breadth long f that their garments reach down to their knees; that they cover their heads with a sharp- pointed cap ; that they always wear a long stick or cane in their hands, which is tipped, not unlike what we' use in Europe; that they we* rNa sort of boot upon their legs which reaoh up to their knee; that their women never show themselves, which perhaps proceeds from the same principle that prevails in Italy and Spain; and in fine, that this people are always at war with the puissant nations that are seated' in the neighbourhood of the lake, but withal that they never disquiet the strolling nations that fall in their way by reason of their weakness- an adnirable lesson for some princes in the world, who are so. much intent upon the making use of the strongest hand. * This was all I could gather upon that subject. My- curiosity prompted me to desire a more particular account;* but unluckily I wanted a good interpreter; i • On that part of the map which U confessedly derived frond Indian authority is the following note:-" A map drawn upon stag- skins by y* Gnacsitares, who gave me to know y latitudes of all y places marked in it, by pointing to y* respective places of y heavens that one or t'other corresponded to; for by this means I could adjust y*- latitude to* half a degree of little mote; having, first received from them a computation of y* distances in fexons, eaoh of which 1 compute to be three leng French leagues." |