festivals; to this were added, pemitigon, a dish made of buffaloe meat, dried or jerked, and then pounded and mixed raw with grease and a kind of ground potatoe, dressed like the preparation of Indian corn called hominy, to which it is little inferior.  Of all these luxuries which were placed before us in platters with horn spoons, we took the pemitigon and the potatoe, which we found good, but we could as yet partake but sparingly of the dog.  We eat and smoked for an hour, when it became dark:  every thing was then cleared away for the dance, a large fire being made in the centre of the house, giving at once light and warmth to the ballroom.  The orchestra was composed of about ten men, who played on a sort of tambourin, formed of skin stretched across a hoop; and made a jingling noise with a long stick to which the hoofs of deer and goats were hung; the third instrument was a small skin bag with pebbles in it:  these, with five or six young men for the vocal part, made up the band.  The women then came forward highly decorated; some with poles in their hands, on which were hung the scalps of their enemies; others with guns, spears or different trophies, taken in war by their husbands, brothers, or connexions.  Having arranged themselves in two columns, one on each side of the fire, as soon as the music began they danced towards each other till they met in the centre, when the rattles were shaken, and they all shouted and returned back to their places.  They have no step, but shuffle along the ground; nor does the music appear to be any thing more than a confusion of noises, distinguished only by hard or gentle blows upon the buffaloe skin:  the song is perfectly extemporaneous.  In the pauses of the dance, any man of the company comes forward and recites, in a sort of low guttural tone, some little story or incident, which is either martial or ludicrous; or, as was the case this evening, voluptuous and indecent; this is taken up by the orchestra and the dancers, who repeat it in a higher strain and dance to it.  Sometimes they alternate; the orchestra first performing, and when it ceases, the women raise their voices and make a music more agreeable, that is, less intolerable than that of the musicians.  The dances of the men, which are always separate from those of the women, are conducted very nearly in the same way, except that the men jump up and down instead of shuffling; and in the war dances the recitations are all of a military cast.  The harmony of the entertainment had nearly been disturbed by one of the musicians, who thinking he had not received a due share of the tobacco we had distributed during the evening, put himself into a passion, broke one of the drums, threw two of them into the fire, and left the band.  They were taken out of the fire:  a buffaloe robe held in one hand and beaten with the other, by several of the company, supplied the place of the lost drum or tambourin, and no notice was taken of the offensive conduct of the man.  We staid till twelve o’clock at night, when we informed the chiefs that they must be fatigued with all these attempts to amuse us, and retired accompanied by four chiefs, two of whom spent the night with us on board.