the fish, and there lodges
them.

The Indian way of catching sturgeon, when they came into the narrow part
of the rivers, was by a man's clapping a noose over their tails, and by
keeping fast his hold. Thus a fish finding itself entangled would
flounce, and often pull the man under water, and then that man was
counted a cockarouse, or brave fellow, that would not let go; till with
swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon, and brought it
ashore. These sturgeons would also often leap into their canoes in
crossing the river, as many of them do still every year into the boats
of the English.

They have also another way of fishing like those on the Euxine sea, by
the help of a blazing fire by night. They make a hearth in the middle of
their canoe, raising it within two inches of the edge; upon this they
lay their burning lightwood, split into small shivers, each splinter
whereof will blaze and burn, end for end, like a candle: 'Tis one man's
work to attend his fire and keep it flaming. At each end of the canoe
stands an Indian, with a gig or pointed spear, setting the canoe
forward, with the butt end of the spear, as gently as he can, by that
means stealing upon the fish without any noise, or disturbing of the
water. Then they with great dexterity dart these spears into the fish,
and so take them. Now there is a double convenience in the blaze of this
fire, for it not only dazzles the eyes of the fish, which will lie
still, glaring upon it, but likewise discovers the bottom of the river
clearly to the fisherman, which the daylight does not.

The following print, I may justly affirm to be a very true
representation of the Indian fishery.

[Illustration: _Lith. of Ritchies & Dunnavant Richmond, Va._
Tab: 1. Book 2. Pag: 120]

TAB. I. Represents the Indians in a canoe with a fire in the middle,
attended by a boy and a girl. In one end is a net made of silk grass,
which they use in fishing their weirs. Above is the shape of their
weirs, and the manner of setting a weir wedge across the mouth of a
creek.

NOTE. That in fishing their weirs they lay the side of the canoe
to the cods of the weir, for the more convenient coming at them,
and not with the end going into the cods, as is set down in the
print: but we could not otherwise represent it here, lest we
should have confounded the shape of the weir with the canoe.

In the air you see a fishing hawk flying away with a fish, and a
ba