They believe that the hail has understanding and knowledge. When my host was giving a feast, that Winter, he said to a young man, "Go tell the Savages of the other Cabin that they may come when they wish, that everything is ready; but do not carry a torch." It was night, and there was a very heavy hailstorm. So I heard the Savages going out from their Cabins, crying to their people, "Do not make any light for us, because it hails." I afterward asked the reason for this, and they answered me that the hail possessed intelligence, and that it hated [90] the light, usually coming only at night-time; that, if torches were carried out of doors, it would stop, and they would be very sorry for this, for it helped them to capture the Moose. See how intelligent these people are about atmospheric phenomena. I told them that the hail was nothing but the water of the rain, congealed by the cold, which was greater at night on account of the absence of the Sun, and so it hailed then oftener than in the middle of the day. They answered me in their usual way, "Thou art an ignoramus; dost thou not see that it has been cold all day long, and that the hail has waited until night to come?" I tried to tell them that the clouds had not yet gathered, but they said, _eca titou eca titou nama Khitirinisin_, "keep still, keep still, thou hast no sense." This is the money with which they pay me, and with which they very often pay the others without any variation. Through superstition, my host cuts off the end of the tail from all the Beavers he takes, and strings them together. I asked why; and the old man told me that it was a resolution or promise that he had made in order to take many Beavers. As to whom he made this vow, [91] neither he nor I would be able to tell. Ils mettent au feu vn certain os plat de Porc épic, puis ils regardent à sa couleur s'ils feront bonne chasse de ces animaux. They put upon the fire a certain flat bone of the Porcupine; then look at its color attentively, to see if they will hunt these animals with success. Quand quelqu'vn de leurs gens s'est egaré dans les bois, voyans qu'il ne retourne point en la Cabane, ils pendent vn fusil à vne perche pour le redresser; & cela fait, me disoient ils, qu'il voye du feu, & qu'il reconnosse son chemin: quand vn esprit s'est vne fois egaré du chemin de la verité, il donne bien auant dans l'erreur. When some one of their men is lost in the woods, seeing that he does not return to his Cabin, they hang a fuse to a pole to direct him, and, that done, they tell me that he sees the fire and finds his way back. When the mind has once strayed from the path of truth, it advances far into error.