diseases they pretend
to cure or their remedies. They carry bags containing sundry relics;
these are "medicine bags." Every brave has his own private medicine
bag. Everything that is incomprehensible, or supposed to be
supernatural, religious, or medical, is "medicine." This feast, being
an unusual one, in honour of strangers, and in connection with a
peculiar and unexpected event, was "medicine." Even Crusoe, since his
gallant conduct in saving the Indian child, was "medicine;" and Dick
Varley's double-barrelled rifle, which had been an object of wonder
ever since his arrival at the village, was tremendous "medicine!"

Of course the Indians were arrayed in their best. Several wore
necklaces of the claws of the grizzly bear, of which they are
extremely proud; and a gaudily picturesque group they were. The chief,
however, had undergone a transformation that well-nigh upset the
gravity of our hunters, and rendered Dick's efforts to look solemn
quite abortive. San-it-sa-rish had once been to the trading-forts of
the Pale-faces, and while there had received the customary gift of
a blue surtout with brass buttons, and an ordinary hat, such as
gentlemen wear at home. As the coat was a good deal too small for him,
a terrible length of dark, bony wrist appeared below the cuffs. The
waist was too high, and it was with great difficulty that he managed
to button the garment across his broad chest. Being ignorant of the
nature of a hat, the worthy savage had allowed the paper and string
with which it had been originally covered to remain on, supposing them
to be part and parcel of the hat; and this, together with the high
collar of the coat, which gave him a crushed-up appearance, the
long black naked legs, and the painted visage, gave to him a _tout
ensemble_ which we can compare to nothing, as there was nothing in
nature comparable to it.

Those guests who assembled first passed their time in smoking the
medicine pipe until the others should arrive, for so long as a single
invited guest is absent the feast cannot begin. Dignified silence was
maintained while the pipe thus circulated from hand to hand. When the
last guest arrived they began.

The men were seated in two rows, face to face. Feasts of this kind
usually consist of but one species of food, and on the present
occasion it was an enormous caldron full of maize which had to be
devoured. About fifty sat down to eat a quantity of what may be termed
thick porridge that w