"The fire-place is a simple shallow cavity, in the centre of the apartment, with an upright and a projecting arm for the support of the culinary apparatus. The latter is very simple in kind, and limited in quantity, consisting of a brass kettle, an iron pot, and wooden bowls and spoons; each person, male as well as female, carries a large knife in the girdle of the breech cloth behind, which is used at their meals, and sometimes for self-defence. During our stay with these Indians they ate four or five times each day, invariably supplying us with the best pieces, or choice {114} parts, before they attempted to taste the food themselves. "They commonly placed before us a sort of soup, composed of maize of the present season, of that description which, having undergone a certain preparation, is appropriately named sweet corn, boiled in water, and enriched with a few slices of bison meat, grease, and some beans, and to suit it to our palates, it was generally seasoned with rock salt, which is procured near the Arkansa river. "This mixture constituted an agreeable food; it was served up to us in large wooden bowls, which were placed on bison robes or mats, on the ground; as many of us as could conveniently eat from one bowl sat round it, each in as easy a position as he could contrive, and in common we partook of its contents by means of large spoons made of bison horn. We were sometimes supplied with uncooked dried meat of the bison, also a very agreeable food, and to our taste and reminiscence, far preferable to the flesh of the domestic ox. Another very acceptable dish was called _leyed corn_; this is maize of the preceding season _shelled_ from the cob, and first boiled for a short time in a ley of wood-ashes until the hard skin, which invests the grains, is separated from them; the whole is then poured into a basket, which is repeatedly dipped into clean water, until the ley and skins are removed; the remainder is then boiled in water until so soft as to be edible. They also make much use of maize roasted on the cob, of boiled pumpkins, of musk-melons, and water-melons, but the latter are generally pulled from the vine before they are completely ripe.