Picara like'd mans flesh as wel as those of Pozo ; for, when the Spaniards were there the first time, above 4000 of the natives follow'd them, "and fo order'd it, that they kil'd and ate at least 300 Indians."*

* C. 22, p. 58. Some of the Indians, after eating the flesh, would ftuf the skin with ashes, and make a wax face to the fcul, fo as to give it the appearance of a liveing man : " and very often, when the people within were all asleep, at night, the devil enter'd into those bodys, which were full of afhes, and frighted the natives with fuch dreadful apparitions, that fome of them died for fear." (C. 28, p. 74.) These devils were, probablely, Spaniards, the only dæmons, it is believe'd, which ever vifited that country.

CHAP. VII.

ANIMAL FOOD PERNICIOUS.

"THESE flesh-eatings," fays Plutarch," are not onely preternatural to mens bodys, but, also, by cloging and cloying them, render their very minds and intellects grofs likewife: for, it is wel known to most, that wine and much flesh-eating make the body, indeed, strong and lufty, but the mind weak and feeble."*

According to Festus, a contagious distemper fpred itsself in Rome, among women with child, in the reign of Tarquin the proud, which was afcribe'd to their eating the flesh of facrifice'd buls, the overplus of which the facrificeërs fold; and, on this occafion, the Taurian, or Taurilian games were inftituteed, to appeafe the anger of the infernal gods.

* Of eating of fb, tract i..

The Arabians, though not without animal food, feldom eat of it; it being thought very unwholefome in fuch hot countrys.

The indulgeing of flesh-meats and strong-liquors, according to doctor Cheyne, inflames the pasfions, and fhortens life. †

"No people in the world," fays doctor Buchan, "eat fuch quantitys of animal food as the Engleish, which is one reafon why they are fo generally tainted with the scurvy and its numerous train of confequenceës, indigestion, low-fpirits, hypochondriafm, &c."

It appears, by the general bil of all the christenings and burials, for the city and suburbs of London, from December 9, 1800, to December 15, 1801, that, of 17,814 children, males and females, christen'd in that or the four preceding years, not less than 5,395 dye'd under the age of two years, nor less than 2,063, between two and five a destruction, apparently, oweing to, and occafion'd by, the untimely and unnatural ufe of animal food. No other nation in the world, it is believe'd, much lefs that of the Hindoos, or any other people, who abftain from this diet, incuring fuch an untimely lofs.

* Niebuhrs Travels, II, 231. t Essay on bealth, p. 94. Domestick medicine, p. 73.

CHAP. VIII.

HEALTH, SPIRITS, AND QUICKNESS OF PERCEPTION PROMOTED BY A VEGETABLE DIET.

Tis furpriseing, fays Goldfmith, to what a great age the primitive christians of the east, ..who retire'd from perfecution in the defarts of Arabia, continue'd to live in all the bloom of health, and yet all the rigours of abftemious discipline. Their common allowance, as we are told, for four-and-twenty hours, was twelve ouncees of bread, and nothing but water. On this fimple beverage St. Anthony is fay'd to have live'd a hundred and five years; James the hermit, a hundred and four; Arfenius, tutor to the emperor Arcadius, a hundred and twenty;

St. Epiphanius, a hundred and fifteen; Simeon, a hundred and twelve; and Rombald, a hundred and twenty. In this manner, he ads, did these holy temperate men live to an extreme old age,

kept cheerful by strong hopes, and healthful by moderate labour.*

That the orientals live to a great age is chiefly: oweing to their abstinence from animal food and ftrong liquors.†

Jofephus observes that the Esfenes, a fort of Jewish monks, live'd commonly to a hundred years, by reason of the fimplicity of their diet, and regular life.‡

The Priscillianifts, or followers of Priscillian, the heretical bishop of Avila in Spain, who fuffer'd under Maximus, anno 385, enjoin'd, or recommended, a total abftinence from all animal food.§

"I marvell," fays Stubbes, fpeaking of the variety of meats in his time," how our forefathers lived, who eat little els but colde meates, groffe, and hard of disgesture? yea, the most of them fead upon graine, corne, rootes, pulfe, hearbes, weedes, and fuch other baggage, and yet lived longer then wee, were healthfuller then we, of better complection then we, and much ftronger then we in every refpect wherfore i

*History of the earth, II, 132.

+ Niebuhrs Travels, II, 375.
Jofephus, Wars of the Jews.

§ Gibbon, III, 27.