He can cut out a
garment, but he can't stitch a button-hole."
CHAPTER IX.
THE PLURAL OF MOOSE.
The room in which we breakfasted was about eighteen feet square,
having a large old-fashioned fire-place opposite to the front door,
which opened directly on the lawn. The walls were fancifully
ornamented with moose and deer horns, fowling-pieces, fishing-rods,
landing nets and baskets, bows and arrows of every description, and
Indian relics, such as stone hatchets, bowls, rude mortars, images,
war clubs, wampum, and implements not unlike broad swords made of
black birch, the edges of which were inlaid with the teeth of animals,
or the shells of fish, ground sharp. Besides these, were skulls of
great size and in good preservation, stone pipes, pouches, and so on;
also some enormous teeth and bones of an antediluvian animal, found in
the Bras Dor lake in Cape Breton. It was, take it altogether, the most
complete collection of relics of this interesting race, the Micmacs,
and of natur's products to be found in this province. Some of the
larger moose horns are ingeniously managed, so as to form supports for
polished slabs of hardwood for tables. The doctor informed me that
this department of his museum was under the sole direction of the
sergeant, who called it his armoury, and to whose experience in the
arrangement of arms he was indebted for the good effect they produced.
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