At the falls of the rivers, where the water is shallow, and the current strong, the Indians use another kind of weir, thus made: They make a dam of loose stone, whereof there is plenty at hand, quite across the river, leaving one, two or more spaces or tunnels for the water to pass through; at the mouth of which they set a pot of reeds, wove in form of a cone, whose base is about three feet, and perpendicular ten, into which the swiftness of the current carries the fish, and there lodges them.
The Indian way of catching sturgeon, when they came into the narrow part of the rivers, was by a man's clapping a noose over their tails, and by keeping fast his hold. Thus a fish finding itself entangled would flounce, and often pull the man under water, and then that man was counted a cockarouse, or brave fellow, that would not let go; till with swimming, wading and diving, he had tired the sturgeon, and brought it ashore. These sturgeons would also often leap into their canoes in crossing the river, as many of them do still every year into the boats of the English.
They have also another way of fishing like those on the Euxine sea, by the help of a blazing fire by night. They make a hearth in the middle of their canoe, raising it within two inches of the edge; upon this they lay their burning lightwood, split into small shivers, each splinter whereof will blaze and burn, end for end, like a candle: 'Tis one man's work to attend his fire and keep it flaming. At each end of the canoe stands an Indian, with a gig or pointed spear, setting the canoe forward, with the butt end of the spear, as gently as he can, by that means stealing upon the fish without any noise, or disturbing of the water. Then they with great dexterity dart these spears into the fish, and so take them. Now there is a double convenience in the blaze of this fire, for it not only dazzles the eyes of the fish, which will lie still, glaring upon it, but likewise discovers the bottom of the river clearly to the fisherman, which the daylight does not.
The following print, I may justly affirm to be a very true representation of the Indian fishery.
[Illustration: _Lith. of Ritchies & Dunnavant Richmond, Va._ Tab: 1. Book 2. Pag: 120]