64 HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. i. 



ty, and the influence of lovc.J Tjiis wonderful de- 

 bility and coldness have been attributed by some wri- 

 ters to a vegetable diet: by others, it is pretended 

 that they derived from nature less appetite for food 

 than the natives of Europe, but nothing can more 

 pointedly demonstrate the' indolent inattention of his- 

 torians,, than their combining these circumstances in 

 one and the same character. An insensibility, or con- 

 temptuous disregard, towards the female sex, was a 

 feature peculiar to the Charaibes; who, however, as 

 we have seen, were robust and vigorous in their per- 

 sons, and insatiably voracious of food. It constituted 

 no part of the disposition of our islanders , amongst 

 whom an attachment to the sex was remarkably con- 

 spicuous. Love, with this happy people, was not a 

 transient and youthful ardour only; but the source of 

 all their pleasures, and the chief business of life : for 

 not being, like the Charaibes, oppressed by the weight 

 of perpetual solicitude, and tormented by an unquench- 

 able thirst of revenge, they gave full indulgence to 

 the instincts of nature, while the influence of the cli- 

 mate heightened the sensibility of the passions. 



In truth, an excessive sensuality was among the 

 greatest defects in their character: and to this cause 



J Robertson, Buffon, De Pauw, and others. 



See Oviedo, lib. v. c. iii. We have nearly the same account at this 

 day of the Arrowauks of Guiana. t( In their natural disposition" (says 

 Bancroft) " they are amorous and wanton;" and Barrere observes, {t Us 

 " sont lulriqu.es au supreme degre." It is related by Herrera, that a deity 

 similar to the Venus of antiquity, was one of the Divinities of the Tlas~ 

 cabins, a people of Mexico. 



