home. After awhile one of the savages came to us and invited
us to go with him to his house, and we entered. This castle
had been surrounded by three rows of palisades, but now there
were none save six or seven pieces so thick that it was quite a
wonder that savages should be able to do that. They crowded
each other in the fire to see us.

December 23. A man came calling and shouting through some
of the houses, but we did not know what it meant, and after awhile
Jeronimus de la Croix came and told us what this was--that the
savages are preparing and arming. I asked them what all this was
about, and they said to me: "Nothing, we shall play with one
another," and there were four men with clubs and a party with
axes and sticks. There were twenty people armed, nine on one
side and eleven on the other; and they went off against each
other, and they fought and threw each other. Some of them
wore armor and helmets that they themselves make of thin
reeds and strings braided upon each other so that no arrow or
axe can pass through to wound them severely; and after they had
been playing thus a good while the parties closed and dragged
each other by the hair, just as they would have done to their
enemies after defeating them and before cutting off their scalps.
They wanted us to fire our pistols, but we went off and left them
alone. This day we were invited to buy bear meat, and we also
got half a bushel of beans and a quantity of dried strawberries,
and we bought some bread, that we wanted to take on our march.
Some of the loaves were baked with nuts and cherries and dry
blueberries and the grains of the sunflower.

December 24. It was Sunday. I saw in one of the houses a