SOC) cook's first voyage OCT. 



not so generally painted, yet we saw one whose whole 

 body, and even his garments, were rubbed over with 

 dry ochre, of which he kept a piece constantly in his 

 hand, and was every minute renewing the decor- 

 ation in one part or another, where he supposed it 

 was become deficient. In personal delicacy they 

 were not equal to our friends at Otaheite, for the 

 coldness of the climate did not invite them so often 

 to bathe ; but we saw among them one instance of 

 cleanliness in which they exceeded them, and of 

 which perhaps there is no example in any other In- 

 dian nation. Every house, or every little cluster of 

 three or four houses, was furnished with a privy, so 

 that the ground was every where clean. The offals 

 of their food, and other litter, were also piled up in 

 regular dunghills, which probably they made use of 

 at a proper time for manure. 



In this decent article of civil economy they were 

 beforehand with one of the most considerable na- 

 tions of Europe ; for I am credibly informed, that, 

 till the year I76O, there was no such thing as a privy 

 in Madrid, the metropolis of Spain, though it is plen- 

 tifully supplied with water. Before that time it was 

 the universal practice to throw the ordure out of the 

 windows, during the night, into the street, where 

 numbers of men were employed to remove it, with 

 shovels, from the upper parts of the city to the lower, 

 where it lay till it was dry, and was then carried 

 away in carts, and deposited without the gates. His 

 present Catholic Majesty, having determined to free 

 his capital from so gross a nuisance, ordered, by pro- 

 clamation, that the proprietor of every house should 

 build a privy, and that sinks, drains, and common 

 sewers should be made at the public expense. The 

 Spaniards, though long accustomed to an arbitrary 

 government, resented this proclamation with great 

 spirit, as an infringement of the common rights of 

 mankind, and made a vigorous struggle against its 

 being carried into execution. Every class devised 



