Their cookery has nothing commendable in it, butthat it is performed with little trouble. They have no othersauce but a good stomach, which they seldom want. Theyboil, broil, or toast all the meat they eat, and it is verycommon with them to boil fish as well as flesh with theirhomony; this is Indian corn soaked, broken in a mortar,husked, and then boiled in water over a gentle fire for ten or twelve hours, to the consistence of frumenty: the thin of this is what my Lord **Bacon calls cream of maise, andhighly commends for an excellent sort of nutriment.

   They have two ways of broiling, vis. one by laying the meat itself upon the coals, the other by laying it upon sticks raised upon forks at some distance above the livecoals, which heats more gently, and dries up the gravy; thisthey, and we also from them, call barbecuing.

   They skin and paunch all sorts of quadrupeds; they drawand pluck their fowl; but their fish they dress with theirscales on, without gutting; but in eating they leave thescales, entrails and bones to be thrown away. They alsoroast their fish upon a hot hearth, covering them with hotashes and coats, then take them out, the scales and skinthey strip clean off, so they eat the flesh, leaving the bones and entrails to be thrown away.

   They never serve up different sorts of victuals in onedish; as roast and boiled fish and flesh; but always servethem up in several vessels.

   They bake their bread either in cakes before the fire, orin loaves on a warm hearth, covering the loaf first with leaves, then with warm ashes, and afterwards with coalsover all.

   TAB. IX. Represents the manner of their roasting andbarbecuing, with the form of their baskets for commonuses, and carrying fish.

   Their food is fish and flesh of all sorts, and thatwhich participates of both; as the beaver, a small kind ofturtle, or terrapins, (as we call them,) and several species ofsnakes. They likewise eat grubs, the nymphae of wasps,some kinds of scarabaei, cicadae, &c. These last are suchas are sold in the markets of Fess, and such as the Arabians,Libyans, Parthians and Ethiopians commonly eat; sothat these are not a new diet, though a very slender one;and we are informed that St. John was dieted upon locustsand wild honey.

   They make excellent broth of the head and umbels of a deer, which they put into the pot all bloody. The seemsresemble the jus nigrum of the Spartans, made with the blood and bowels of a hare. They eat not the brains with the head, but dry them and reserve them to dress their leatherwith.

   They eat all sorts of peas, beans, and other pulse, both parched and boiled. They make their bread of the Indian corn, wild oats, or the seed of the sunflower. But when they eat their bread, they eat it alone, and not with theirmeat.

   They have no salt among them, but for seasoning sethe ashes of hickory, stickweed, or some other wood or plantaffording a salt ash.

   They delight much to feed on roasting ears; that is, theIndian corn, gathered green and milky, before it is grown to its full bigness, and roasted before the fire in the ear. Forthe sake of this diet, which they love exceedingly, they arevery careful to procure all the several sorts of Indian cornbefore mentioned, by which means they contrive to prolongtheir season. And indeed this is a very sweet and pleasingfood.

   They have growing near their towns, peaches, strawberries,cushaws, melons, pompions, macocks, &c. The cushaws

   and pompions they lay by, which will keep severalmonths good after they are gathered; the peaches they saveby drying them in the sun; they have likewise several sortsof the phaseoli.

   In the woods, they gather chinkapins, chestnuts, hickoriesand walnuts. The kernels of the hickories they bent in a mortar with water, and make a white liquor like milk, fromwhence they call our milk hickory. Hazelnuts they will not meddle with, though they make a shift with acornssometimes, and eat all the other fruits mentioned before, butthey never eat any sort of herbs or leaves.

   They make food of another fruit called cuttanimmons, thefruit of a kind of arum, growing in the marshes: they arelike boiled peas or capers to look on, but of an insipidearthy taste. Captain Smith in his History of Virginia callsthem ocaughtanamnis, and Theod. de Bry in his translation,sacquenummener.

   Out of the ground they dig trubs, earth nuts, wildonions, and a tuberous root they call tuckahoe, which whilecrude is os a very hot and virulent quality: but they canmanage it so, as in case of necessity, to make bread of it,just as the East Indians and those of Egypt are said to doof colocassia, or the West Indians of cassava. It grows likea flag in the miry marshes, having roots of the magnitudeand taste of Irish potatoes, which are easy to be dug up.

   They accustom themselves to no set meals, but eat night and day, when they have plenty of provisions, or ifthey have got any thing that is a rarity. They are verypatient of hunger, when by any accident they happen tohave nothing to eat; which they make more easy to themselvesby girding up their bellies, just as the wild Arabs aresaid to do in their long marches; by which means they are less sensible of the impressions of hunger.

   Among all this variety of food, nature hath nottaught them the use of nay other drink than water; whichthough they have in cool and pleasant springs every where,yet they will not drink that if they can get pond water, or

   such as has been warmed by the sun and weather. Caron Lahontan tells of a sweet juice of maple, which the Indiansto the northward gave him, mingled with water; butour Indians use no such drink. For their strong drink theyare altogether beholden to us, and are so greedy of it, thatmost of them will be drunk as often as they find an opportunity; notwithstanding which it is a prevailing humoramong them, not to taste any strong drink at all, unlessthey can get enough to make them quite drunk, and thenthey go as solemnly about it as if it were part of their religion.

   Their fashion of sitting at meals is on a mat spreadon the ground, with their legs lying out at length beforethem, and the dish between their legs; for which reasonthey seldom or never sit more than two together at a dish,who may with convenience mix their legs together and havethe dish stand commodiously to them both, as appears bythe figure.

   The spoons which they eat with do generally hold half a pint; and they laugh at the English for using small ones,which they must be forced to carry so often to their mouthsthat their arms are in danger of being tired before theirbelly.

   TAB. X. Is a man and his wife at dinner.

   No. 1. Is their pot boiling with homony and fish in it.

   2. Is a bowl of corn, which they gather up in their fingers,to feed themselves.

   3. The tomahawk, which he lays by at dinner.

   4. His pocket, which is likewise stripped off, that he may be at full liberty.

   5. A fish.

   6. A heap of roasting ears.

   } Both ready for dressing.

   7. The gourd of water.

   8. A cockle shell, which they sometimes use instead of a spoon.

   9. The mat they sit on.

   All other matters in this figure are understood by the foregoingand following descriptions.