The dwellings of the Mandans were large and comfortable; they were divided into several rooms and round the walls were beds in the form of bunks. They had earthen vessels in which they cooked their food. The women made very neat baskets of wicker-work. The most remarkable thing about these people was their prudence for the future. They had storerooms underground in which they stored the dressed skins which they preserved to trade with neighbouring tribes for guns and ammunition; they had products of Europe in use, though they had not yet come into direct contact with Europeans. In these storerooms they preserved also dried meat and grain for food in the winter. This foresight {67} impressed La Vérendrye. Most of the Indian tribes lived only in the present; when they had food they feasted upon it from morning to night, and when their provisions were gone they starved. The Mandans, however, kept on hand an ample supply of food, both for their own use and for that of strangers who might visit them. They amused themselves with rude sports. Among these La Vérendrye mentions a game of ball, but he does not describe it. Probably it was the game of lacrosse, which was played by many of the Indian tribes long before white men came to copy it from them. After an absence of a few days, François de La Vérendrye returned from the village which he had visited. He had been warmly welcomed. He reported that the village was much larger than the one his father was living in, and that it was fortified in the same way. He had tried to question the Mandans of this village, but could make nothing out of their answers. They were so impatient to speak that they would constantly interrupt one another; when asked about one thing they would answer about another, because they did not really understand the question. The Mandans tried to make up in hospitality for {68} their inability to answer the Frenchman's questions. 'As we found that it was a waste of time to question them, we had to fall back on feasting the whole time we were with them, and even then we could not attend nearly all the feasts to which we were invited.' [Illustration: Mandan girls. From Pritchard's 'Natural History of Man.']