ring
it with a twist.

One of the best of their bows was made of a single piece of fir, four
feet eight inches in length, flat on the inner side and rounded on the
outer, being five inches in girth about the middle, where, however, it
is strengthened on the concave side, when strung, by a piece of bone ten
inches long, firmly secured by treenails of the same material. At each
end of the bow is a knob of bone, or sometimes of wood covered with
leather, with a deep notch for the reception of the string. The only
wood which they can procure, not possessing sufficient elasticity
combined with strength, they ingeniously remedy the defect by securing
to the back of the bow, and to the knobs at each end, a quantity of
small lines, each composed of a plat or "sinnet" of three sinews. The
number of lines thus reaching from end to end is generally about thirty;
but, besides these, several others are fastened with hitches round the
bow, in pairs, commencing eight inches from one end, and again united at
the same distance from the other, making the number of strings in the
middle of the bow sometimes amount to sixty. These being put on with the
bow bent somewhat the contrary way, produce a spring so strong as to
require considerable force as well as knack in stringing it, and giving
the requisite velocity to the arrow. The bow is completed by a woolding
round the middle, and a wedge or two, here and there, driven in to
tighten it. A bow in one piece is, however, very rare; they generally
consist of from two to five pieces of bone of unequal lengths, secured
together by rivets and treenails.

The arrows vary in length from twenty to thirty inches, according to the
materials that can be commanded. About two thirds of the whole length
is of fir rounded, and the rest of bone let by a socket into the wood,
and having a head of thin iron, or more commonly of slate, secured into
a slit by two treenails. Towards the opposite end of the arrow are two
feathers, generally of the spotted oval, not very neatly lashed on. The
bowstring consists of from twelve to eighteen small lines of three-sinew
sinnet, having a loose twist, and with a separate becket of the same
size for going over the knobs at the end of the bow.

We tried their skill in archery by getting them to shoot at a mark for a
prize, though with bows in extremely bad order on account of the frost,
and their hands very cold. The mark was two of their spears stuck
upright in the sn