twenty feet in diameter.
The fire was always made in the centre, around which the occupants
generally placed a range of stones to prevent the ashes from
scattering and to keep the fire compact. New tents were perfectly
white; some of them were painted with red and black figures. These
devices were generally derived from the dreams of the Amerindians,
being some mythical monster or other hideous animal, whose description
had been handed down from their ancestors. A large camp of such tents,
pitched regularly on a level plain, had a fine effect at a distance,
especially when numerous bands of horses were seen feeding in all
directions.

The "lodges" or long houses made of poles, fir branches, moss, &c.,
wherein, among the Iroquois, Algonkin, and Siou peoples, several
families made a common habitation, are described here and there in the
course of the narrative. The houses of the coast tribes of British
Columbia were bigger, more elaborate, and permanent, and in this
region the natives had acquired some idea of carpentry, and had learnt
to make planks of wood by splitting with wedges or hewing with adzes.

One of these British Columbian houses was measured, and found to be
seventy feet long by twenty-five feet wide; the entrance in the gable
end was cut through a plank five and a half feet wide, and nearly
oval. A board suspended on the outside answered for a door; on the
other side of the broad plank was rudely carved a large painted figure
of a man, between whose legs was the passage. But other houses on the
Pacific coast, visited by Cook or Vancouver, are said to have been
large enough to accommodate seven hundred people. These houses of the
Pacific coast region were exceedingly filthy, sturgeon and salmon
being strewn about in every direction. The men inhabiting them were
often disgusting in their behaviour, while the women are declared to
have been "devoid of shame or decency".

According to Mackenzie, such habitations swarmed with fleas, and even
the ground round about them "was alive with this vermin". The
Alexander Henrys, both uncle and nephew, complain of the flea plague
(partly due to the multitude of dogs) in every Indian village or
encampment.

The domestic implements of the Amerindians were few. Pottery seems to
have been unknown amongst the northern tribes to the east and north of
the Mississippi valley, but earthen jars and vessels were made by the
Dakota-Siou group in the valley of the Mississippi. Am