ter) forthwith plunge themselves over head and ears in
cold water, which instantly closes up the pores, and preserves them from
taking cold. The heat being thus suddenly driven from the extreme parts
to the heart, makes them a little feeble for the present, but their
spirits rally again, and they instantly recover their strength, and find
their joints as supple and vigorous as if they never had traveled, or
been indisposed. So that I may say as Bellonius does in his observations
on the Turkish bagnio's, all the crudities contracted in their bodies
are by this means evaporated and carried off. The Muscovites and
Finlanders are said to use this way of sweating also. "It is almost a
miracle," says Olearius, "to see how their bodies, accustomed to and
hardened by cold, can endure so intense a heat, and how that when they
are not able to endure it longer, they come out of the stoves as naked
as they were born, both men and women, and plunge into cold water, or
cause it to be poured on them." Trav. into Musc., I, 3, page 67.

The Indians also pulverize the roots of a kind of anchusa, or yellow
alkanet, which they call puccoon, and of a sort of wild angelica, and
mixing them together with bear's oil, make a yellow ointment, with
which, after they have bathed, they anoint themselves Capapee; this
supples the skin, renders them nimble and active, and withal so closes
up the pores, that they lose but few of their spirits by perspiration.
Piso relates the same of the Brazilians; and my Lord Bacon asserts, that
oil and fat things do no less conserve the substance of the body, than
oil-colors and varnish do that of the wood.

They have also a farther advantage of this ointment; for it keeps all
lice, fleas, and other troublesome vermin from coming near them; which
otherwise, by reason of the nastiness of their cabins, they would be
very much infested with.

Smith talks of this puccoon, as if it only grew on the mountains,
whereas it is common to all the plantations of the English, now on the
land frontiers.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF THE INDIANS.

Sec. 43. Their sports and pastimes are singing, dancing, instrumental
music, and some boisterous plays, which are performed by running,
catching and leaping upon one another; they have also one great
diversion, to the practicing of which are requisite whole handfuls of
little sticks or hard straws, which they know how to count as fast as
they can cast their e