impatience to eat them, that they could not wait to have them cooked. I
lent them also some bark, which other savages had given me, to cover their
cabins. As they were making their cabin, they discovered a piece of
carrion, which I had had thrown out nearly two months before to attract the
foxes, of which we caught black and red ones, like those in France, but
with heavier fur. This carrion consisted of a sow and a dog, which had
sustained all the rigors of the weather, hot and cold. When the weather was
mild, it stank so badly that one could not go near it. Yet they seized it
and carried it off to their cabin, where they forthwith devoured it half
cooked. No meat ever seemed to them to taste better. I sent two or three
men to warn them not to eat it, unless they wanted to die: as they
approached their cabin, they smelt such a stench from this carrion half
warmed up, each one of the Indians holding a piece in his hand, that they
thought they should disgorge, and accordingly scarcely stopped at all.
These poor wretches finished their repast. I did not fail, however, to
supply them according to my resources; but this was little, in view of the
large number of them. In the space of a month, they would have eaten up all
our provisions, if they had had them in their power, they are so
gluttonous: for, when they have edibles, they lay nothing aside, but keep
consuming them day and night without respite, afterwards dying of hunger.
They did also another thing as disgusting as that just mentioned. I had
caused a bitch to be placed on the top of a tree, which allured the martens
[320] and birds of prey, from which I derived pleasure, since generally
this carrion was attacked by them. These savages went to the tree, and,
being too weak to climb it, cut it down and forthwith took away the dog,
which was only skin and bones, the tainted head emitting a stench, but
which was at once devoured.

This is the kind of enjoyment they experience for the most part in winter;
for in summer they are able to support themselves, and to obtain provisions