Prev | Current Page 207 | Next

Richardson, John, 1796-1852

"Wacousta : a tale of the Pontiac conspiracy (Complete)"

This was composed of
a single piece of stiff brown leather, curved and puckered
round the sides and front, where it was met by a tongue
of softer material, which helped to confine it in that
position, and to form the shoe. A bandana handkerchief
fell from his neck upon his chest; the covering of which
was so imperfectly drawn, as to disclose a quantitity of
long, coarse, black, and grisly hair.
His companion was habited in a still more extraordinary
manner. His lower limbs were cased, up to the mid-thigh,
in leathern leggings, the seam of which was on the outside,
leaving a margin, or border, of about an inch wide, which
had been slit into innumerable small fringes, giving them
an air of elegance and lightness: a garter of leather,
curiously wrought, with the stained quills of the porcupine,
encircled each leg, immediately under the knee, where it
was tied in a bow, and then suffered to hang pendant half
way down the limb; to the fringes of the leggings,
moreover, were attached numerous dark-coloured horny
substances, emitting, as they rattled against each other,
at the slightest movement of the wearer, a tinkling sound,
resembling that produced by a number of small thin delicate
brass bells; these were the tender hoofs of the wild
deer, dried, scraped, and otherwise prepared for this
ornamental purpose.


Pages:
195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219