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 at this time extremely cold, and when the divers got into the boats, they seemed greatly benumbed; and it is usual with them after this exercise, if they are near enough their wigwams, to run to the fire, to which presenting one side, they rub and chafe it for some time; then turning the other, use it in the same manner till the circulation of the blood is restored.  This practice, if it has no worse effect, must occasion their being more susceptible of the impressions of cold than if they waited the gradual advances of their natural warmth in the open air.  I leave it to the decision of the gentlemen of the faculty, whether this too hasty approach to the fire may not subject them to a disorder I have observed among them, called the elephantiasis, or swelling of the legs.[118]