We will leave Renaud thus busy in his espionage, while we rehearse the manner in which the venerable Audusta proceeded to treat his company. A substantial feast was provided for them, consisting of venison, wild fowl, and fruits. Their breadstuffs were maize, batatas, and certain roots sodden first in water, and then prepared in the sun. A drink was prepared from certain other roots, which, though bitter, was refreshing and slightly stimulant. Our Frenchmen, in the absence of the beverages of Italy and France, did not find it unpalatable. They ate and drank with a hearty relish, which gratified the red-men, who lavished on them a thousand caresses. The feast was followed by the dance. In a spacious area, surrounded by great ranks of oaks, cedars, pines, and other trees, they assembled, men and women, in their gayest caparison. The men were tatooed and painted, from head to foot, and not inartistically, in the most glowing colors. Birds and beasts were figured upon their breasts, and huge, strange reptiles were made to coil up and around their legs and arms. From their waists depended light garments of white cotton, the skirts being trimmed with a thick fringe of red or scarlet. Some of them wore head-dresses consisting of the skins of snakes, or eagles, the panther or the wild cat, which, stuffed ingeniously, were made to sit erect above the forehead, and to look abroad, from their novel place of perch, in a manner equally natural and frightful. The women were habited in a similarly wild but less offensive manner. The taste which presided in their decorations, was of a purer and a gentler fashion. Their cheeks were painted red, their arms, occasionally but slightly tattooed, and sometimes the figure of a bird, a flower or a star, might be seen engrained upon the breast. A rather scanty robe of white cotton concealed, in some degree, the bosom, and extended somewhat below the knees. Around the necks of several, were hung thick strands of native pearls, partially discolored by the action of fire which had been employed to extricate them from the shells. Pearls were also mingled ingeniously with the long tresses of their straight, black hair; trailing with it, in not unfrequent instances, even to the ground. Others, in place of this more valuable ornament, wore necklaces, anklets and tiaras, formed wholly of one or other of the numerous varieties of little sea shells, by which, after heavy storms, the low and sandy shores of the country were literally covered. Strings of the same shell encircled the legs, which were sometimes of a shape to gratify the nicest exactions of the civilized standard. The forms of our Indian damsels were generally symmetrical and erect, their movements at once agile and graceful--their foreheads high, their lips thin, and, with a soft, persuasive expression, inclining to melancholy; while their eyes, black and bright, always shone with a peculiar forest fire that seemed