As we were wholly unacquainted with these methods of providing food for ourselves, and were without arms and ammunition, we were driven to the utmost straits; and found ourselves rather in worse condition than we had been at any time before. For the Indians having now nothing to fear from us, we found we had nothing to expect from them upon any other motive. Accordingly, if ever they did relieve us, it was through caprice; for at most times they would shew themselves unconcerned at our greatest distresses. But the good Indian women, whose friendship I had experienced before, continued, from time to time, their good offices to me. Though I was not suffered to enter their wigwams, they would find opportunities of throwing in my way such scraps as they could secrete from their husbands. The obligation I was under to them on this account was great, as the hazard they ran in conferring these favours was little less than death. The men, unrestrained by any laws or ties of conscience, in the management of their own families, exercise a most despotic authority over their wives, whom they consider in the same view as any other part of their property, and dispose of them accordingly: even their common treatment of them is cruel; for though the toil and hazard of procuring food lies entirely upon the women, yet they are not suffered to touch any part of it till the husband is satisfied; and then he assigns them their portion, which is generally very scanty, and such as he has not a stomach for himself. This arbitrary proceeding, with respect to their own families, is not peculiar to this people only. I have had occasion to observe it in more instances than this I have mentioned, among many other nations of savages I have since seen.