A portion was also parched, which was
simply done by putting the rice dry into the iron pot, and setting it on
hot embers, stirring the grain till it burst: it was then stored by for
use. Rice thus prepared is eaten dry, as a substitute for bread, by the
Indians. The lake was now swarming with wild fowl of various kinds; crowds
of ducks were winging their way across it from morning till night, floating
in vast flocks upon its surface, or rising in noisy groups if an eagle or
fish-hawk appeared sailing with slow, majestic circles above them, then
settling down with noisy splash upon the calm water. The shores, too, were
covered with these birds, feeding on the fallen acorns which fell ripe and
brown with every passing breeze; the berries of the dogwood also furnished
them with food; but the wild rice seemed the great attraction, and small
shell-fish and the larvae of many insects that had been dropped into the
waters, there to come to perfection in due season, or to form a provision
for myriads of wild fowl that had come from the far north-west to feed upon
them, guided by that instinct which has so beautifully been termed by one
of our modern poetesses, "God's gift to the weak" [Footnote: Mrs.
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