The same might, perhaps, be said of the land-animals, which, though doubtless the natives sometimes kill them, appeared to be scarce at this time; as we did not see a single piece of the flesh belonging to any of them; and though their skins be in tolerable plenty, it is probable that many of these are procured by traffic from other tribes.  Upon the whole, it seems plain, from a variety of circumstances, that these people procure almost all their animal food from the sea, if we except a few birds, of which the gulls or sea-fowl, which they shoot with their arrows, are the most material.

As the Canadian pine-branches and sea-grass, on which the fish roe is strewed, may be considered as their only winter vegetables; so, as the spring advances, they make use of several others as they come in season.  The most common of these, which we observed, were two sorts of liliaceous roots, one simply tunicated, the other granulated upon its surface, called mahkatte and koohquoppa, which have a mild sweetish taste, and are mucilaginous, and eaten raw.  The next, which they have in great quantities, is a root called aheita, resembling, in taste, our liquorice; and another fern root, whose leaves were not yet disclosed.  They also eat, raw, another small, sweetish, insipid root, about the thickness of sarsaparilla; but we were ignorant of the plant to which it belongs; and also of another root, which is very large and palmated, which we saw them dig tip near the Village, and afterward eat it.  It is also probable, that, as the season advances, they have many others, which we did not see.  For, though there be no appearance of cultivation amongst them, there are great quantities of alder, gooseberry, and currant bushes, whose fruits they may eat in their natural state, as we have seen them eat the leaves of the last, and of the lilies, just as they were plucked from the plant.  It must, however, be observed, that one of the conditions which they seem to require, in all food, is, that it should be of the bland, or less acrid kind; for they would not eat the leek or garlic, though they brought vast quantities to sell, when they understood we were fond of it.  Indeed, they seemed to have no relish for any of our food; and when offered spirituous liquors, they rejected them as something unnatural and disgusting to the palate.

Though they sometimes eat small marine animals in their fresh state, raw, it is their common practice to roast or broil their food; for they are quite ignorant of our method of boiling; unless we allow that of preparing their porpoise broth is such; and indeed their vessels being all of wood, they are quite insufficient for this purpose.