5*
Jhr of which to a greater or lefs diflance from the end, the de- March. 0
«----|----1 gree of obliquity is increafed .or diminifhed at pleafure.
To the northward, as I have obferved, there are plantations
of yams, fweet potatoes, and coccos, but we faw no
fuch to the fouthward ; the inhabitants therefore of that
part of the country mull fubfilb wholly upon fern root and
fiCh, except the fcanty and accidental refource which they
may find in fea fowl and dogs ; and that fern and filh are
not to be procured at all feafons of the year, even at the fea
fide, and upon the neighbouring hills, is manifeft from the
ftore-s of both that we faw laid up dry, and the reluctance
which fome of them exprelfed at felling any part of
them to us when we offered to purchafe them, at lead the
fifh, for fea flores : and this particular feems to confirm my
opinion that this country fcarcely fuftains the prefent number
of its inhabitants, who are urged to perpetual hoflilities
by hunger, which naturally prompted them to eat the dead
bodies of thofe who were flain in the conteft.
Water is their univerfal and only liquor, as far as we
could difcover, and if they have really no means of intoxication,
they are, in this particular, happy beyond any other
people that we have yet feen or heard of.
As there is perhaps no fource of difeafe either critical or
chronic, but intemperance and inaftivity, it cannot be
thought ftrange that thefe people enjoy perfect and uninterrupted
health,: in all our vifits to their towns, where young
and old, men and women, crowded about us, prompted by
the fame curiofity that carried us to look at them, we never
faw a Angle perfon who appeared to have any bodily complaint,
nor among the numbers that we have feen naked,
did we once perceive the flighted eruption upon the fkin, or
any marks that an eruption had left behind: at firft, indeed,
9 obferving
obferving that fome of them when they came off to us were March,
marked in patches with a white flowery appearance upon c—
different parts of their bodies, we thought that they were
leperous, or highly fcorbutic; but upon examination we
found that thefe marks were' owing to their having been
wetted by the fpray of die fea in their pafiage, which, when
it was dried away, left the falts behind it in a fine white
powder.
Another proof of health, which we have mentioned upon
a former occafion, is the facility with which the wounds
healed that had left fears behind them, and that we faw
in a recent ftate; when we faw the man wljo had been
flrot with a mufket ball through the flelhy part of his arm,
his wound feemed to be fo well digefted, and in fo fair a
way of being perfectly healed, that if I had not known no
application had been made to it, I fhould certainly have enquired,
with a very interefted curiofity, after the vulnerary
herbs and furgical art« of the country.
A farther proof that human nature is here untainted with
difeafe, is the great number of old men that we faw, many
of whom, by the lofs of their hair and teeth, appeared to be
very ancient, yet none of them were decrepit, and though
not equal to the young in mufcular ftrength, were not a
whit behind them in cheerfulnefs and vivacity.
V ol. III., H CHAP.