“To this last article my new customer took a great fancy; and he made me describe to him the method of putting it on, and the warmth and comfort of it when on. Be it remembered that he was a very large, corpulent man, probably weighing sixteen stone. I knew him to be very good-natured, as I had hunted once with his son; and, on returning to his lodge, the father had feasted me, chatted with me by signs, and taught me some of that most extraordinary Indian method of communication. He said he should like to try on the jacket; and as he threw the buffalo-robe off his huge shoulders, I could scarcely keep my gravity, when I compared their dimensions with the garment into which we were about to attempt their introduction. However, by dint of great industry and care, we contrived to get him into it. In the body, it was a foot too short, and fitted him so close that every thread was stretched to the uttermost; the sleeves reached a very little way below his elbow. However, he looked upon his arms and person with great complacency, and elicited many smiles from the squaws at the drollery of his attire; but, as the weather was very hot, he soon began to find himself too warm and confined, and he wished to take it off again. He moved his arms,--he pulled the sleeves,--he twisted and turned himself in every direction, but in vain. The woollen jacket was an admirable illustration of the _Inferno_ of Dante and Virgil, and of matrimony as described by many poets; it was easy enough to get into it, _sed revocare gradum_ was a difficult matter indeed. The old man exerted himself till the drops of perspiration fell from his forehead; but had I not been there, he must either have made some person cut it open, or have sat in it until this minute. “For some time, I enjoyed this scene with malicious and demure gravity, and then I showed him that he must try and pull it off over his head. A lad, who stood by, then drew it till it enveloped his nose, eyes, mouth, and ears; his arms were raised above his head, and for some minutes he remained in that melancholy plight, blinded, choked, and smothered, with his hands rendered useless for the time. He rolled about, sneezing, sputtering, and struggling, until all around were convulsed with laughter; and the squaws shrieked, in their ungovernable mirth, in a manner that I had never before witnessed. At length I slit a piece of the edge, and released the old fellow from his straight-waistcoat confinement. He turned it round often in his hands, and made a kind of comic-grave address to it, of which I could only gather a few words. I believe the import of them was, that it would be a ‘good creature in the ice-month at the village.’ I was so pleased with his good humor, that I gave it to him, and told him to warm his squaw with it in the ice-month.” Mr. Murray gives us, also, the following sketch.