An Indian immediately undertook to perform the task, and carrying it to a fire, tore with his teeth a piece of bone from a fish-gig, which he fastened on the spear with yellow gum, rendered flexible by heat.
[*It had long been our wish to establish a commerce of this sort.

It is a painful consideration, that every previous addition to the cabinet of the virtuosi, from this country, had wrung a tear from the plundered Indian.] October, 1790.

Many of them now consented to be shaved by a barber whom we had purposely brought over.

As I thought he who could perform an operation of such importance must be deemed by them an eminent personage, I bade him ask one of them for a fine barbed spear which he held in his hand; but all the barber's eloquence was wasted on the Indian, who plainly gave him to understand that he meant not to part with his spear, without receiving an equivalent.

Unfortunately, his price was a hatchet, and the only one which I had brought with me was already disposed of to the man who had pointed my spear.