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And Dussasana, beholding those chastisers of foes, dressed in deer-skins and deprived of their kingdom and ready to go into exile, exclaimed 'The absolute sovereignty of the illustrious king Duryodhana hath commenced. The sons of Pandu have been vanquished, and plunged into great affliction. Now have we attained the goal either by broad or narrow paths.

Hearing these words of the king, and tying him fast to his pledge, and conscious also of her power over him, she addressed him in these words, "I desire that Bharata be the recipient of that investiture which thou hast designed for Rama, and let Rama go into exile living in the forest of Dandaka for fourteen years as an ascetic with matted locks on head and robed in rags and deer-skins!"

During the long years since then, these unfortunates have been condemned to dwell beneath the fall and forced to toil daily dressing deer-skins; until now, no longer young and beautiful, they can be seen betimes through the mist, trailing their white hair behind them and stretching out shrivelled arms towards any mortal who ventures to visit the confines of their mystic dwelling-place.

The house is not divided into rooms, but into stalls, like those of a stable; and deer-skins are spread in the stalls, and they are the beds; each person sits and sleeps in his own stall, on his own deer-skin, except when the family gather round the fire, and sitting on low stools, warm themselves, and talk together.

The liberal Christians sold it to him for the low price of twenty deer-skins, worth twenty crowns, and they also let him have a copper kettle for fifty skins. They drove a lively traffic with the savages for much of such "truck," and the chief came on board and ate and drank merrily with the strangers. His wife and children, short of stature but well-formed and bashful, also paid them a visit.

Matonabbee hastened to relieve the young explorer's sufferings. He provided him with warm deer-skins and, from his ample supplies, prepared a great feast for the good cheer of his new acquaintance. An orgy of eating followed, dear to the Indian heart, and after this, without fire-water to drink, the Indians sang and danced about the fires of the bivouac.

I was well found in blankets, deer-skins, and moccassins; all the appliances of half-breed apparel had been brought into play to fit me out, and I found myself possessed of ample stores of leggings, buffalo "mittaines" and capots, where with to face the biting breeze of the prairie and to stand at night the icy bivouac. So much for personal costume; now for official kit.

The young Indian wife turned quickly, and, in a defiant, fantastic mood or was it the inward cry against an impending fate, the tragic future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer? she made some quaint, odd motions of the body which belonged to a mysterious dance of her tribe, and, with flashing eyes, challenged the comely old woman seated on a pile of deer-skins.

This town of Apalache contained forty low huts or cabins, enclosed among thick woods and morasses in which they found abundance of maize, deer-skins, mantles, head-dresses for women, and stones for grinding corn, but no gold.

The camp consisted of two large wigwams, the covers of which were of dressed deer-skins sewed together and drawn tight over the poles, while across the doorway bung an old piece of sacking. The covers were now worn and old and dirty-grey in colour save round the opening at the top, where they were blackened by the smoke from the fire in the centre of the wigwam.