Roots and vegetables of every description are cooked during the summer by means of furnaces in the open air; they are then baked on stones, formed into small cakes, and dried in the sun, after which the whole is carefully laid by for winter use. And while speaking of a furnace and baking, we ought not to omit stating how they bake their bread, and what kind of bread they generally make use of. On the pines of this country there is a dark brown moss which collects or grows about the branches. {318} This moss is carefully gathered every autumn, when it has the appearance of dirty coarse wool. It is soaked in water, pressed hard together, and then cooked in an oven or furnace, from which it comes forth in large sheets like slate, but supple and pliable, resembling pieces of tarpauling, black as ink, and tasteless; and when cut with a knife it has a spotted or marbled appearance, owing to the number of small sprigs of wood, bark, or other extraneous substances, unavoidably collected with the moss in taking it from the trees. This cake when dried in the sun becomes as hard as flint, and must always be soaked in water before use. It is generally eaten with the raw fat of animals, as we use bread and butter. It is viscous and clammy in the mouth, with but little taste. Thus prepared it will keep for years; is much liked by the natives, and sometimes eaten by the whites. It is called squill-ape. We now come to their warlike weapons and manner of fighting. Generally speaking, they are rather a trafficking commercial people than a nation of warriors; yet, when called to war, they are resolute and brave. Their implements of warfare are guns, bows, and arrows (in the use of which they are very expert), shields, knives, and lances, and a bludgeon, for close combat, called spampt. This deadly weapon is made in the following manner:—A piece of hard wood, about nine inches long, and half an inch in diameter, of a cylindrical form, resembling a short rule, is tightly covered over with a piece of raw hide, which being large at one end forms a bag, in which is {319} enclosed a round stone of the size of a goose-egg. This has the appearance of a ball at the end of the staff: the space between them about an inch, serving as a joint; the other end is tied round the wrist of the right hand with a thong. An Oakinacken thus accoutred, and mounted on his fleetest steed, is ready for action.