Their wants indeed are also few, but they are arbitrary and cannot be dispensed with, at least for any time. It is therefore very natural that they should employ their whole thoughts and most of their time in procuring these means to warding off or averting their dangers. And I do not know of any method more adapted to this than the one they pursue: fasting and sleeping to dream. And they do dream too. And many of these dreams are so complicated, or compounded of so many different things that it is absolutely beyond the power of _their_ invention to fabricate them. Surely a man may believe his senses. A man tied, wound up in a blanket or skin equally soft. Here he is held by one, two, or three men. He slips out of the blanket and presents himself before you free, leaving the cords _untied_ in the blanket. You hear him speak, and perhaps twenty other voices besides, all at the same. Again, he is bound as a criminal, rather indeed as a pig, crumpled into a heap and thrust into his _hut_. At the very instant of his entrance, the hut shakes as if ten thousand devils were for pulling it to pieces. You enter this, find the man absent, hear a fluttering about your ears or see a vast number of small lights resting on the hoops that hold the poles together. Immediately after you are out, you hear the man speak within again. You look again and feel for him, but hear him talking at a distance. What can this be but supernatural agency? I have never seen feats of _this_ kind, but others I have, not so _strong_, but equally convincing. [Conjuring Ceremony for a N. W. Co. Gentleman] I have been informed that a young half-breed, abandoned with the Indians almost from his childhood, a few years back entered one of these conjuring _huts_ at the solicitation of one of the North West gentlemen to see what retarded the people so long. Previous to his entering a great deal of conversation on the subject had been [taking place]. Matters were settled between them and the conjurer. Some time after his entrance, he began to cry (not weep) as a person uneasy. At first the voice was within, but it appeared as rising in the air, and at last was lost. "Well!" said one of the Indians, addressing one of the half-breeds living with the white. "Well! Enter now, and see if he be there. Thou art always doubting and denying what we say of these things. Enter then, and see if he be there. Then indeed are our assertions false." He raised the bottom of the _casement_ and entered. But as he was not below, he rose on his feet and felt for him, but [the conjurer was] not to be found. However he was _paid_ for his curiosity. There was a dreadful fluttering within, but especially about his head. His hair [was] flying about in his face as if in a tempest, and [there were] frequent appearances of small lights before his eyes whichever way he turned. He bawled out and asked those without what was the matter with him. He became afraid and _walked_ {43} out as quick as he could.