of which I thought a little cleanliness might in some measure
contribute; I therefore went to a brook, and taking off my shirt, which
might be said to be alive with vermin, set myself about to wash it; which
having done as well as I could, and hung on a bush to dry, I heard a bustle
about the wigwams, and soon perceived that the women were preparing to
depart, having stripped their wigwams of their bark covering, and carried
it into their canoes. Putting on, therefore, my shirt just as it was, I
hastened to join them, having a great desire of being present at one of
their fishing parties.

It was my lot to be put into the canoe with my two patronesses and some
others who assisted in rowing; we were in all four canoes. After rowing
some time, they gained such an offing as they required, where the water
here was about eight or ten fathoms deep, and there lay upon their oars.
And now the youngest of the two women, taking a basket in her mouth, jumped
overboard, and diving to the bottom, continued under water an amazing time;
when she had filled the basket with sea-eggs, she came up to the boat-side,
and delivering it so filled to the other women in the boat, they took out
the contents and returned it to her. The diver then, after having taken a
short time to breathe, went down and up again with the same success, and so
several times for the space of half an hour. It seems as if Providence had
endued this people with a kind of amphibious nature, as the sea is the only
source from whence almost all their subsistence is derived. This element
too, being here very boisterous, and falling with a most heavy surf upon a
rugged coast, very little, except some seal, is to be got any where but in
the quiet bosom of the deep. What occasions this reflection, is the early
propensity I had so frequently observed in the children of these savages to
this occupation, who, even at the age of three years, might be seen
crawling upon their hands and knees among the rocks and breakers, from
which they would tumble themselves into the sea without regard to the cold,
which is here often intense, and shewing no fear of the noise and roaring
of the surf.

This sea-egg is a shell-fish, from which several prickles project in all
directions, by means whereof it removes itself from place to place. In it
are found four or five yolks, resembling the inner divisions of an orange,
which are of a very nutritive quality and excellent flavour.

The water was