urneys in the
interior I knew, by their being in a recent state, when I was approaching
a tribe; or when they were not quite recent how long it was since the
natives had been in such parts of the woods; whether they had any iron
hatchets or used still those of stone only; etc.

(*Footnote. Many usages of these rude people much resemble those of the
wandering Arabs. Dr. Pococke mentions some open huts made of boughs
raised about three feet above the ground which he found near St. John
D'Acre. He observes: "These materials are of so perishing a nature, and
trees and reeds and bushes are so very scarce in some places that one
would wonder they should not all accommodate themselves with tents but we
find they do not in fact." Volume 2 page 158. "And that they should
publish and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, Go
forth unto the mount and fetch olive branches and pine branches and
myrtle branches and palm branches and branches of thick trees to make
booths as it is written." Nehemiah 8:15.)

REMARKABLE CUSTOMS.

The men wear girdles usually made of the wool of the opossum, and a sort
of tail of the same material is appended to this girdle, both before and
behind, and seems to be the only part of their costume suggested by any
ideas of decency. The girdle answers besides the important purpose of
supporting the lower viscera, and seems to have been found necessary for
the human frame by almost all savages.

CHARMED STONES. FEMALES EXCLUDED FROM SUPERSTITIOUS RITES.

In these girdles the men, and especially their coradjes or priests,
frequently carry crystals of quartz or other shining stones, which they
hold in high estimation and very unwillingly show to anyone, taking care
when they do that no woman shall see them.*

(*Footnote. Genesis 28:18. "From this conduct of Jacob and this Hebrew
appellative, the learned Bochart, with great ingenuity and reason,
insists that the name and veneration of the sacred stones called Baetyli,
so celebrated in all Pagan antiquity, were derived. These baetyli were
stones of a round form, they were supposed to be animated, by means of
magical incantations, with a portion of the Deity; they were consulted on
occasions of great and pressing emergency, as a kind of divine oracles,
and were suspended either round the neck or some other part of the body."
Burder's Oriental Customs volume 1 page 40.)

BANDAGE OR FILLET AROUND THE TEMPLES.

The natives wear a neatly wrough