These songs are a dull monotony. For though they have a few variations and are high and low, and the [transitions are] sometimes so very sudden that it requires a particular command of the throat to sing them, and to _me_ [are] so difficult, I should, I believe, require a seven years apprenticeship even with Esculapius (But I believe it is _Pluto_ or _Pan_ who teaches the songs.) himself for me to learn them. There is certainly no musick in them, though some few that I've heard many years ago, passing a winter with them, I found pleasing enough. But perhaps more from the _solemnity_ with which all was going on was I struck than anything else. Indeed we had great reason to be solemn, for we were dreadfully pinched by hunger. [Ceremonies and Songs Related to Starvation] When oppressed through starvation, they have a variety of ceremonies which they perform. And though the songs be different, as also the _ceremonies_ themselves, still are they intended to answer the same purpose. I shall endeavour to describe a couple to you from which you may form a pretty just idea of the rest. It was the latter end of January or beginning of February 1804. Four of us, only _white_ people mind, were pitching off, or rather flying off from our houses we had built in the fall on account of _the_ enemies. We had a small stock of dry provisions and speared a few fish once or twice. But there were so many of us that we were soon brought to short commons, as the _strip_ of country we were then going through contained no other animals but a few stragling bears. But these animals at _this_ season could not be found notwithstanding all the exertions of our hunters. One evening on my return to our lodges, one of the women told me that the oldest man of our band, a great doctor, or conjurer, as we frequently denominate them, said that if I were to pay him half a carrot (one and a half pounds) tobacco, he would conjure and be assured of success, for it required payment. Though I suspected there was a trick in this, I did not hesitate but gave him his demand. The first night their songs and ceremonies were as usual. "Tomorrow, my _familiar_ tells me, we shall get a bear." All the hunters returned at evening _mais tous à blanc_. The second night, the rattler, songs, speeches, smoking, and medicine bags opened. "Tomorrow we will assuredly get something." But the same as the day before. The third night, the same, but everything conducted with a sort of awful silence and solemnity that surprised me a good deal. I was harassed with constant walking, weake through hunger, and tired with their _bêtises_ as the French say. But the manner of their conduct kept me that time from growling. "Oh! Now tomorrow indeed, we shall not fail. We shall certainly eat flesh for the old man is a great conjurer and well liked. He prayed to the _Master_ or Giver of _Life_, and his dreamed have promised him success."