When these people have finally determined on war, they make it an invariable practice, for three or four weeks prior to the expedition, to go into the water five or six times a day, when they wash and scrub themselves from head to foot with bushes intermixed with briers, so that their bodies and faces will often be entirely covered with blood. During this severe exercise, they are continually exclaiming, "_Wocash, Quahootze, Teechamme ah welth, wik-etish tau-ilth--Kar sub-matemas--Wik-sish_ _to hauk matemas--I ya-ish kah-shittle--As-smootish warich matemas_"; which signifies, "Good or great God, let me live--Not be sick--Find the enemy--Not fear him--Find him asleep, and kill a great many of them." During the whole of this period they have no intercourse with their women, and for a week before setting out, abstain from feasting or any kind of merriment, appearing thoughtful, gloomy, and morose, and for the three last days are almost constantly in the water, both by day and night, scrubbing and lacerating themselves in a terrible manner. Maquina, having informed Thompson and myself that he should take us with him, was very solicitous that we should bathe and scrub ourselves in the same way with them, telling me that it would harden our skins, so that the weapons of the enemy would not pierce them, but as we felt no great inclination to amuse ourselves in this manner, we declined it. The expedition consisted of forty canoes, carrying from ten to twenty men each. Thompson and myself armed ourselves with cutlasses and pistols, but the natives, although they had a plenty of European arms, took with them only their daggers and cheetolths, with a few bows and arrows, the latter being about a yard in length, and pointed with copper, mussel-shell, or bone; the bows are four feet and a half long, with strings made of whale sinew. To go to A-y-chart, we ascended, from twenty to thirty miles,[120] a river about the size of that of Tashees, the banks of which are high and covered with wood. At midnight we came in sight of the village, which was situated on the west bank near the shore, on a steep hill difficult of access, and well calculated for defence. It consisted of fifteen or sixteen houses, smaller than those at Nootka, and built in the same style, but compactly placed. By Maquina's directions, the attack was deferred until the first appearance of dawn, as he said that was the time when men slept the soundest.