426 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



Certain Philosophers, wrapped up in good warm 

 cloaks, and who never ftir beyond the precincts 

 of our great cities, have figured to themfelves a 

 natural Man on the Earth, like a ftatue of bronze 

 in the middle of one of our fquares-. But to fay 

 nothing of the innumerable inconveniencies which 

 muft, in fuch a ftate, opprefs his miferable exift- 

 ence from without, as the cold, the heat, the wind, 

 the rain, I fhall in lift only on one inconvenience, 

 which is but ilightly felt in our commodious apart- 

 ments, though it would be abfolutely infupportable 

 to a naked man, in the moft genial of tempera- 

 tures; I mean the flies.- I fhall quote, to this pur- 

 pofe, the teftimony of a man whofe fkin ought to> 

 have been proof againft this attack : it is that of 

 the free-booter Raveneau de Lujjan, who, in the 

 year 1688, crofled the ifthmus of Panama, on his 

 return from the South Seas. Hear what he fays, 

 fpeaking of the Indians of Cape de Gracias a 

 Dios : " When they are overtaken with an inclU 

 " nation to go to ileep, they dig a hole in the 

 ** fand, in which they lay themfelves along, and 

 " then cover themfelves all over with the fand 

 " which they had dug out ; this they do to fhelter 

 " themfelves from the attack of the mufquitos, 

 <c with which the air is frequently loaded. They 

 *' are a kind of little flies, that are rather felt than 

 *' feen, and are armed with a fting fo keen, and fo 



" venemous 



