After this prelude, the person who had sung and danced recovers his breath and spirits a little, and begins his harangue in praise of the maker of the feast. He flatters him greatly, in attributing to him a thousand good qualities he never had, and appeals to all the company for the truth of what he says, who are sure not to contradict him, being in the same circumstance as himself of being treated, and answer him by the word _Heh_, which is as much as to say, _Yes_, or _Surely_. Then he takes them all by the hand, and begins his dance again: and sometimes this first dance is carried to a pitch of madness. At the end of it he kisses his hand, by way of salute to all the company; after which he goes quietly to his place again. Then another gets up to acquit himself of the same duty, and so do successively all the others in the cabbin, to the very last man inclusively. This ceremony of thanksgiving being over by the men, the girls and women come in, with the oldest at the head of them, who carries in her left hand a great piece of birch-bark of the hardest, upon which she strikes as it were a drum; and to that dull sound which the bark returns, they all dance, spinning round on their heels, quivering, with one hand lifted, the other down: other notes they have none, but a guttural loud aspiration of the word Heh! Heh! Heh! as often as the old female savage strikes her bark-drum. As soon as she ceases striking, they set up a general cry, expressed by Yah! Then, if their dance is approved, they begin it again; and when weariness obliges the old woman to withdraw, she first pronounces her thanksgiving in the name of all the girls and women there. The introduction of which is too curious to omit, as it so strongly characterises the sentiments of the savages of that sex, and confirms the general observation, that where their bosom once harbours cruelty, they carry it greater lengths than even the men, whom frequently they instigate to it.