Ghahiboes eat worms, scolopendras, and even stinking fisha: hence the saying of the other Indians, that "a Ghahibo eats every thing above ground, and every thing under ground." The pariahs of Hindostan are, also, said to contend for putrid carrion with dogs, vultures, and kites.

Some of the Bramins of India esteem the grain, which has passed through the cow, as the purest and most exquisite of food! In certain districts of Bengal, they not only eat the sheep, but the skin; not only the skin, but the wool; and not only the wool, but the entrails; being, like the Moors of Africa, always in the extremes of abstinence and gluttony. The Esquimaux even swallow the feathers of birds; and the Otomans of South America eat an unctuous clay, having no mixture of organic substance, whether oily or farinaceous. This is, also, practised in other climates".

Some of the Chinese eat dogs, cats, rats, and bears' paws; those, residing on the coasts, live almost entirely upon fish. The Persians, on the other hand, will never touch fish, if they can get any thing else to eat and the natives of Caurifiristan, near Caubul, abhor it; though they eat animal food of every other kind. The Japanese, however, prefer it to all things; and like the Icelanders, and the inhabitants of the coast of Caithness, will even eat sea-weed; as the New Caledonians do lichens.

d

:

Abraham tended his own cattle, and Rachel drew water from the well while Achilles in Greece, and Scipio in Italy, cooked their own food. The latter frequently supped on herbs and roots. The Spaniards had once a proverb, that radishes, salad, and oil, constituted a dinner for a gentleman: nowthe poor and the rich have nothing but the three fluids,―air, light, and water,-in common with each other. In France

a Humboldt, Pers. Nar. iv. 571.

b Vid. Labillardière, Voy. La Perouse, t. ii. 306. Voy. d'Entrecasteaux, t. i. 354. c Fucus palmatus.

d Herman's Trav. in Interior of N. America, p. 63.

e Hor. lib. ii. sat. 1.

the greatest man now gives the greatest feast. But Sully was plain and economical on similar occasions; and when his friends reproached him for it, he replied, "If my guests are men of sense and ability, there is sufficient; if not, their company is more than enough for me."

Difference in food frequently gives rise to national disgust. The English peasantry dislike the French, because they eat frogs and snails; and Baretti once heard a Frenchman swear, that he hated the English, because they poured hot melted butter over their veal!

When water was not at hand, the Scythians used to draw blood from their horses, and drink it: and the dukes of Muscovy, for nearly 260 years, presented Tartar ambassadors with the milk of mares. If any of this milk fell upon the manes of their horses, the dukes by custom were bound to lick it off!

The Tonquinese, the Madagascarines, and Arabians eat locusts; and Leibnitz speaks of them as being a food so delicious, that if princes of Europe knew how much so it was, they would send to the East for them. A tribe of Arabs between Tunis and Algiers live, almost entirely, upon the flesh of lions; the Payaguas eat crocodile. The Booshuana Africans eat not only wolves and ant-eaters, but leopards, tiger-cats, and camelopards; and these too in a country abounding in grouse, bustards, partridges, and guinea-fowls. The Malabarese eat jackals, and call them delicate food. The Xygantes ate monkeys'; the Abyssinians esteem raw

a A letter from Buenos Ayres states, that General St. Martin gave a feast, a few weeks before, to the Nomades of the Pampas of Rio de la Plata, in which he had treated them in a manner to charm every one; for he had given them the flesh of mares, served up raw, and gin mixed with the blood; of which not only the men partook, but their wives and daughters, even to intoxication. b Chronicle of Muscovy. Peter Petreius, part ii. 159. Montaigne, vol. i. Letter to Magliabechi.

c. 48.

d Dobrighoffer, Hist. de Aponibus.

f Herod. Melpom. c. cxciv.

e Blumenbach.

flesh a luxury; the Hindoos use assafoetida; and the Esquimaux Indians have a great dislike to sugar.

e

In some parts of America the natives eat the flesh of rattlesnakes. Its flavour is said to be superior to that of eels, and to produce excellent soup. On the Congo the Africans eat the skin of sheep, with the wool singed over a smoky fire. In the time of Davis (1586) the Greenlanders not only lived on raw fish; but they drank sea-water, and esteemed ice and grass luxuries f

f.

Sea-weeds, dried and formed into cakes, are used by the natives of Chiloe; also at Lima. In some countries the Awa Nori sea-weed is dried, roasted, rubbed into powder, and mixed with soup. North of the Cape they esteem waterlilies great dainties, and the candle-berry myrtle is eaten by the Hottentots like bread. The fucus saccharinus is detached from the island of Matsinai, and thrown with great violence on the shores of Japan; where it is dried, cleansed, boiled, and eaten by the Japanese, when they make entertainments, and drink sakki; also by Icelanders, boiled in milk.

The Jews were commanded by Moses to eat whatever parted the hoof, was cloven-footed, or that chewed the cud;

Elphinstone, Caubul, p. 303, 4to.

с

b M'Keevor's Voy. p. 36. Auburey's Travels, i. p. 343.

d The sheep of Persia, in the time of Alexander, were observed to eat the small fish cast upon the shore of the Red Sea. The horses of Shetland are said, also, to eat fish from choice. Tuckey, p. 360, 4to.

e

f The Greenlanders eat the flesh of reindeer; but they never use them, as the Laplanders do, for domestic purposes; they regard them only as beasts of chase. The Greenlanders are offensive! They not only eat the entrails of the smaller animals *, but lice. The former they devour after only squeezing them through their fingers: and what comes out of the reindeer's stomach they esteem a luxury. As to lice, "they bite," say they, "and therefore must be bitten in return +." 8 Thunberg, iii. p. 150.

1

except swine, hares, rabbits, and camels: they might eat fishes, too, that had fins and scales; but no others. They were commanded, also, not to eat birds, or beasts of prey; nor cuckoos, nor swans, pelicans, storks, nor lapwings. Yet they were allowed to eat locusts, beetles, and grasshoppers: but neither blood nor fat. The Mahometans eat nothing, reckoned impure in the Old Testament., The Jews were not expensive at their entertainments. Nehemiah, while governor of Judah, had, however, prepared for his household one ox, six sheep, several fowls, and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine. Ahasuerus is said to have entertained all the governors of his kingdom for six months and for seven days he kept open table for all the inhabitants

of Susa.

с

b

Though Persia abounded in excellent fruits, yet, in the time of Cyrus, Xenophon relates, that the most agreeable meal to a Persian consisted of bread and water-cresses. Porphyry says that the more ancient Greeks and Syrians abstained entirely from the flesh of animals; in which they resembled the ancient and modern Hindoos, the Gaures, and Macassars. In the time of Boadicea, even the British lived upon vegetables. "One great advantage," said she to her army, "is, that we live upon herbs and roots: water supplies the place of wine; and every tree is to us as a house." But Arcammes, a prince of Gaul, gave a great feast, which lasted an entire year: every one that came was welcome; even the strangers that travelled through the country a.

Among the Tartars mare's milk was preferred; in Arabia camel's; in Lapland reindeer's; in Peru lama's; in Poitou the French prefer the milk of sheep. In many parts of North and South Wales sheep are as regularly milked as In the Tyrol goat's milk is in frequent use; and in the part of France, in which Montaigne lived, mothers, e Lib. iv. par. ii. xv. e Essays, b. ii. c. 8.

COWS.

* Nehemiah, ch. v. 18. b Cyroped. lib. i. c. 8. 11.

4 Athenæus, lib. iv. c. 13.

who had no milk of their own, frequently permitted goats to suckle their children".

The existence of cannibals was, for a long time, disputed; and it would be well, if it could be disputed still; but the fact is now established beyond the possibility of doubt.

g

Homer accuses the Cyclops of this practice. But we must confine ourselves to fact. Herodotus accuses the Scythians; Diodorus the Cimbrians; and Cæsar the Gauls. The Melanchlani and the Lamiæ were, also, addicted to this horrid practice. Strabo h accuses the ancient Irish of this practice; and St. Jerome says, that he saw several Britons, then in Gaul, eat the flesh of men. "They esteemed," says the venerable father, "the breasts of women great dainties." The Gauls of Gascoigny, during the siege of Alecia, ate the bodies of those, who were incapable of bearing arms. It is right, however, to remember that Juvenal, who alludes to this circumstance, qualifies the account by adding, est fama*.

At the capture of Rome by the Goths, in 410, the lands not having been tilled for some time, and the ports being blockaded, such distress prevailed, that human flesh was publicly

a I believe the best method of rearing children, when their mothers cannot nurse them, is by allowing them to suck a domesticated animal. I know a fine healthy young lady, now about seventeen years of age, who was thus reared. A goat is the best animal for this purpose, being easily domesticated, very docile, and disposed to an attachment for its foster-child: the animal lies down, and the child soon knows it well, and, when able, makes great efforts to creep away to it and suck. Abroad, the goat is much used for this purpose; the inhabitants of some villages take in children to nurse; the goats, when called, trot away to the house, and each one goes to its child, who sucks with eagerness, and the children thrive amazingly.-Gooch's Lectures.

b Odyss. ix. 290; x. 129. Tantalus is represented as having slain his son, and served him up for the gods to eat, in order to try their divinity: and Progne is fabled to have murdered her own son, Itys, in revenge to her husband, for his conduct to Philomela, and gave his flesh for him to eat.

c Lib. iv. 18. 20; also Pliny, vii. 2.

e De Bell. Gall. vii. 71. Diod. Sic. v. c. 32, p. 355.

8 Philostr. in Vit. Apol. iv.

i Adv. Jovent. lib. ii.

d Lib. v. c. 32.

f Herodotus.

h Lib. iv. 201.

k Sat. xv. 93.