the voracious appetites of the christians, who heap whole bisks of fish upon their tables, and facrifice whole becatombs of animals to their gluttony. They cannot be tempted, either by the delicacy of the food, or for prevention of either fickness or death, to fo enormous an offence as the tafteing of flesh. Vegetable products, and the milk of cattle, rice, and other forts of grain, which nature affords in plenty, and they with innocence can enjoy, is the lawful nourishment they delight in."* "I ask'd the bramin," fays a Danish misfionary, "if he thought it unlawful to eat fish or flesh. He reply'd that," Nature has plentyfully provideëd us with other food, fo that we have no need of eating our fellow-creatures; and 'tis writen in our law, that these very creatures, if devour'd by men in this, wil be their tormentors in the next world, biteing and tearing them with their teeth or trampleing them under foot and because you Europeans drink ftrong liquors, and kil and eat your fellow-creatures, endue'd with five ftnfees as wel as your felves, i confess, have an inbred averfion for you and all that belo gs to you.'t : we + Thirty-four conferences, &c. p. 276: fee, allfo p. 95. The fins ftrictly forbiden in the Malabarish law are murder and kiling any liveing creature.* "We," fays a Malabarian, "neither kil nor eat of any liveing creature, because we believe the transmigration of fouls, loaded with fins, into beasts. This opinion is ftrictly maintain'd among us, except onely by one fect who and the poorer fort of them feed on the flesh of cows and rats [for which reasons they are confider'd by the rest of the nation as unclean, and therefor oblige'd to keep at a distance from other men]." eat fish and fowl; "Some among us," it is a Malabarian who fpeaks, "eat nothing but marakari (or all forts of garden-herbs and roots)... The other forts of meat, are kirei (a garden root very much in ufe here), wareikai (or green figs... made into foup), kadarikai (a fort of round fruit of a very agreeable odour), pawakai, (a fruit prickle'd without, ful of kernels like beans), mankai (a green fruit, which, when boil'd, is good for eating), with feveral other fruits, which are eaten with milk, and fometimes with butter, or in broth prepare'd with feveral forts of herbs. We keep to these fimple eatables because they have been the food of many ageës pafs'd; and we have a conftant *Account of the Malabarians, p. 17. tradition among us, that this manner of eating is not onely wholesome to the body, but contributes to attain everlasting hapyness and, on the contrary, they that make no difference between clean and unclean food fhal be feverely punish'd in the other world... One of our poets writes, that whoever abstains from the flesh of liveing creatures, all men and all forts of liveing creatures regard fuch a man with the profoundest respect, and falute him with a thousand schalam; and it is a receive'd opinion among us, that fuch as kil and eat the flesh of any creature endue'd with the five fenfees cannot obtain the hapynefs of the other world; but his lot wil be to keep company with Olina dudakkol (the god of the dead and king of hel)."* India, in short, of all the regions of the earth, is the onely publick theatre of justice and tendernefs to brutes, and all liveing creatures; for, not confineing murder to the kiling of a man, they religiously abstain from takeing away the life of the meaneft animal, mite, or flea.† * Ibi, p. 76. Ovingtons Voyage to Surat, p. 296. See allfo The voyages of fobn Struys, p. 275. "Thofe," say the bramins, "who have forfakeën the kiling of all, are in the way to heaven." Again: "Behold the difference between the one 5 One of the greatest charitys of the Siamefe is to give liberty to animals, which they buy of those that have takeën them in the fields.* The South-Americans are a humane and amiable, but very indolent people. "Though the Indian women breed fowl and other domestick animals in their cottageës, they never eat them: and even conceive fuch a fondness for them, that they wil not even fel them, much lefs kil them with their own hands: fo that if a Spaniard, who eateth flesh, and him to whom it belonged. The first hath a momentary enjoyment, while the latter is deprive'd of existence." Again: "A fellow-creature fhould be spare'd, even by this analogy: the pain which a man fuffereth when he is at the point of death." They even define religion, "Compasfion for all things which have life." fcarcely look upon a mangle'd carcafe. them is little less than a murderer, and of all vocations the moft odious. (Ovington, p. 242.) The Gentoos wil A butcher with Louberes History of Siam, p. 116. Their talapoins or priests cannot without fin kil any liveing creature, nay it is a crime with them to go a-hunting, to firike a beast, and to do it hurt any manner of way. The reason they give is, that beafts, haveing life as wel as we, are fenfible of pain as wel as we, and fince we are not wiling that any body should hurt us, it is not reasonable that we should hurt them. Nay, they accufe us of ingratitude, becaufe we put to death innocent creatures, which have render'd us so many services. Voyage to Siam by fix Jefuits, p. 302. 6 who is oblige'd to pass the night in one of their cottagees, offer ever fo much money for a fowl, they refufe to part with it; but this affectionate humanity is loft upon the infolent and unfeeling barbarian, who dispatches it himself, at which his landlady fhrieks, disfolves in tears, and wrings her hands, as if it had been an onely fon."* "I have often thought," fays Mandeville, "if it was not for the tyranny which custom ufurps over us, that men of any tolerable good-nature could never be reconcile'd to the kiling of fo many animals for their dayly food, as long as the bountyful earth fo plentyfully provides them with varietys of vegetable daintys. I know that reafon excites our compasfion but faintly, and, therefor, i would not wonder how men fhould fo little commiferate fuch imperfect creatures as cray-fish, oysters, cockles, and, indeed, all fish in general as they are mute, and their inward formation, as wel as outward figure, vaftly different from ours, they exprefs themselves unintelligiblely to us, and therefor 'tis not firange that their grief fhould not affect our understanding, which it cannot reach, for nothing ftirs us to pity fo effectually as when the symptoms of misery strike immediately upon our fenfees, and i have seen people move'd at the noife a live lobster makes * Juan & Ulloas Voyage to S. America, I, 425. |