Wines are manufactured from the different fruits which are common in the country. From frosted potatoes, the Canadians manufacture a good wine, especially if the potatoes are not so much frosted as to become soft and watery. They crush them to a pulpy consistence, and to each bushel add ten gallons of water, which is first prepared by boiling for one half-hour with 4lb. of hops and lb. of common ginger. This mixture is thrown upon the potatoes in a suitable vessel, and allowed to stand for three days, after which a little yeast is added. When the fermentation has ceased, the liquor is drawn off into a cask clear of the dregs, when lb. of raw sugar is added to every gallon which the cask contains. Here a partial fermentation takes place, and after three months it is deemed fit for use. Some add the sugar in the first instance.

The distillers make whiskey from potatoes when injured by frost, and allege that they produce a greater quantity and a finer quality of spirit than if they were used fresh; the frost having more strongly developed the saccharine principle. To promote the fermentation, about one-fourth of malt-wash is added; care, however, should be taken to allow the malt-worts to ferment at least six hours before the potato-wash is added; otherwise the potato-wash, which runs quickly into fermentation, will be sooner ready for the still than the maltwash. Hence the effect would be to generate an acid which would render the spirit coarse, and, when diluted with water, produce a milky or bluish colour, offensive both to the taste and to the eye.

The Canadas afford a sufficient supply of honey for the manufacture of mead, though wild and not of first rate quality. In the hollows of the trees in the woods, bees' nests are abundant, but these sweet treasures are unsought for by any but the bears. Chateaubriand asserts, that bees are imports, not indigenous, in the New World, and that they were emigrants with Columbus. "These pacific conquerors," he says, "have robbed the flowers of the New World of such treasures only as the natives knew not the use of, and these treasures they have employed solely to enrich the soil from whence they derived them. What a happy world if all invasions or conquests resembled that of those children of the sky!" On the contrary, Dr. Dwight affirms that the honey-bee is a native of America, since it was found in the forests too early, and at too great a distance from European settlements, to have been derived from importation.

Among the drinks of the Canadians, spruce beer is in considerable repute. The mode of making it is, by first boiling the shoots, leaves, chips, and cones, of the black pine tree in water, to which highlydried rye, barley, or maize-meal is added. The mixture is then

fermented by means of barm, but in order to overcome the resinous flavour of the fir, sugar, or molasses, is superadded. This liquor, which is fit for drinking on the second day, is of a fine amber colour; it is diuretic, wholesome, agreeable, and will keep for a length of time without becoming acid, owing to the influence of the resinous principle of the fir. A more simple mode is practised in Lower Canada, namely,―The top branches of the spruce tree are boiled, and molasses added to the liquid, and then fermented, after which it is commonly bottled and fit for use.

As country taverns are numerous, they are generally established on the public roads during the summer; but in the winter, temporary wooden establishments are erected on the rivers which are then frozen, and are the public thoroughfare of travellers. Sometimes fatal accidents occur by sudden thaws and floods, by which these floating taverns are swept away with their inmates. The trunks of trees are sometimes scooped out and made convenient resting places, having accommodations for travellers; they are so large as to admit of being moulded into temporary dwellings. An inn of this kind was made in a sycamore growing on the banks of the Mohawk river, in Oneida County. When cut down, it took 31 yoke of oxen to remove it, though denuded of its branches. It formed a saloon, was handsomely furnished, and sufficiently capacious to contain upwards of forty persons.

The numerous hordes of savages who wander through the vast woods and deserts of this great continent, use, for the most part, beverages either made by themselves or furnished by their civilized neighbours. Their propensity to intoxication is in general very strong, but their poverty prevents them from indulging in it. Brandy, says Kalm, has killed more of them than any of the diseases with which they have been infected. That liquor was unknown to them before Europeans visited the country. To die by drinking brandy was considered a desirable and honourable death. A savage being asked by a French officer what he thought this drink was made of, gave for answer- "It is made of tongues and hearts; for when I have drunk of it, I fear nothing, and I talk like an angel." These kind-hearted creatures, when a stranger appears among them, conduct him to a hut where he is presented with the calamut of peace, and a bowl, sacred to friendship, filled with maple juice, when after having taken his pleasure of the liquor, the host quaffs the residue as a pledge of future confidence and alliance. When they assemble together for any purpose, they never separate without a drunken revel, which

often continues for several days. Regardless of what may be the fatal effects, they continue till the last drop is exhausted.

One very extraordinary meeting, at which a great deal of the native and foreign beverages is consumed, is termed the feast of the dead. It is peculiar to all the American savages residing in the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi, and the Ohio, and is strikingly worthy of attention. During the feast, which is probably a remnant of Mexican superstition, the bodies of all who have died since the last solemn festival of the kind are taken out of their graves, though they may have been interred at the greatest distance, and brought to the carnival or rendezvous of carcasses. It is not difficult to conceive the horror that must be excited by this general disinterment, but the enthusiasm of the Indian mind renders it insensible to that feeling. When the feast is over, the dead bodies are again interred; and some individuals perform incredible journeys with their deceased friends on their backs to deposit them in the grave from which they had been raised.* This ceremony of respect, though so rudely performed to the memory of departed friends, is in coincidence with the annual festival kept in Bengal, Thibet, and other Eastern nations, in honour of the dead; and it corroborates the opinion that the Americans are descendants of the great Asiatic family.

The practice observed by many members of the Greek Church in Albania, in Europe, is a further illustration of this fact. They hold feasts at their interments, and have commemorations on the 15th, 21st, and 40th days after, with repetitions at the end of the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth months; and at the expiration of three years, when the bones are disinterred, washed with wine, tied in a bag, and deposited in a church for three days before they are placed in the cemetery. Even the relatives give entertainments on those occasions in in proportion to their circumstances.†

The Brazilian savages usually meet, on the day appointed for a feast, early in the morning at the first house of the village, where they consume most of the liquor, and make themselves merry with dancing. They afterwards remove to the next house, and then proceed until nothing is left, or until they can drink no longer; the scene that follows this general intoxication is disgusting in the

extreme.

Some of the tribes, bordering on the United States sensible of the dangers attendant on such excesses, have wisely decreed a prohibition of spirituous liquors, and one infringing this law is deprived of the Hughes's Travels, vol. ii. p. 85

Bolingbroke, &c. 4to.

right of citizenship. The Ricaras evinced great resolution in this respect, refusing, with a degree of indignation, an offer of whiskey from an American party, and testifying surprise that their great father, the President, should send them a liquor which possessed the quality of making them fools. The Muscogulges, in a treaty with the whites, stipulated that the latter should not sell spirituous liquors to the allied nations; these they called "French poison or liquid fire." A warrior of the Kansas tribe exhorted his countrymen “not to drink the poisonous strong water of the white people. It was sent by the bad spirit to destroy the Indians. I have seen its evil effects, but its victims are all gone; like a decayed prairie tree, I stand alone, the companions of my youth, the partakers of my sports, my toils, and my dangers, recline their heads on the bosom of our mother: my sun is fast descending behind the western hills, and I feel that it will soon be night with me. Beware of the destroyer and the magic charms of its influence."

It is remarkable, says Dr. Robertson, that the women are not permitted to participate in the debauches of the Indians. Their province is to prepare the liquor, to serve it about to the guests, and to take care of their husbands and friends, when their reason is overpowered. Although this observation is applicable to some tribes, it is not universally so. A recent traveller assures us, that a drunken Indian and his squaw act more like demons than rational beings when under the paroxysm of inebriation; and that sometimes a whole village, both men and women, is so debased by it, as to bear no inapt resemblance to the infernal regions. The white traders often ungenerously take advantage of such occasions to defraud the Indians, who, when they become sober, seek a desperate revenge either in the destruction of life or property. A gentleman, who was an eye-witness, gives the following description of a scene, that took place after the interment of an Indian of the Occoquan tribe :

The dance, says he, took place by moonlight, and it was scarcely finished when the chief or principal warrior produced a keg of whiskey, and having taken a draught, passed it round among his brethren. The squaws now moved the tomahawks into the wood, and a scene of riot ensued. The keg was soon emptied. The effects of the liquor became apparent in the looks and motions of the Indians. Some rolled their eyes with distraction, others could not keep on their legs. At length succeeded the most dismal noises. Such whoops, such shouts, such roaring, such yells, all the devils of hell seemed collected together. Each strove to do an outrage on the other. This seized the other by the throat, that kicked with raging fury. And to com

plete the scene, the whole warrior was uttering the most mournful lamentations over the keg he had emptied; inhaling its flavour with his lips, holding it out with his hands in a supplicating attitude, and vociferating to the byestanders, Scuttawawah! Scuttawawah ! More strong drink! More strong drink!

Amidst the weakness and depravity into which intoxication betrays those uneducated beings, some admirable specimens of presence of mind and firmness of disposition are related, that would do honour to any country. An old warrior is said on one occasion to have been placed in a very embarrassing situation, through the insulting conduct of a set of drunken fellows that he met accidentally in a dram-shop, on the borders of one of the States. This chief, after taking some drink by way of refreshment, was so affected by it, that he seemed to forget his native dignity, and entered into very familiar conversation with the whites. Advantage was taken of this weakness, and the party insisted on his drinking more, threatening, in case he did not, to drench him with whiskey. The man, with a noble and fearless countenance, turned upon the company, and addressing himself, with a contemptuous and scowling aspect, to the landlord, who was a highly respectable person, said "No blood when much talk-chattering belongs to women and wild geese."-Then snatching a board on which was pinned a piece of white paper, he placed it at the distance of a hundred yards; and, taking aim with his musket, shot a ball through the centre; reloaded, and repeated the act with the same success. Immediately after he grasped his tomahawk and threw it against a tree, with such force and precision as to cleave the part intended. "Thus," said he, addressing the astonished beholders, "Indian man provide for his wife and little ones in peace-thus defend them in war." The effect was such as anticipated, and his rude opponents retired without offering him further molestation. Another anecdote favourable to the character of the American savages is related by Dr. Dwight. An American called one evening at an inn in the town of Lichfield, and requested of the landlady to furnish him with some drink and a supper, observing at the same time, with great candour, that he could not then pay for either, as he had no success that day in hunting. Both drink and supper were refused, and he was ordered to go about his business for a lazy, drunken, good-for-nothing fellow. The Indian was about to retire, when a man that was present, observed that he appeared much distressed, and showed by his countenance that he was suffering very much from want and weariness. He directed the hostess to supply him with what he desired and that he would pay the expense. Accordingly, drink and supper were served up, which, when the