50 OBSERVATIONS on THE 
the Spaniards, in the conqueft of Mexico, lived 130 years. 
He alfo makes mention of a Jefuit, who died in that coun- 
try at the age of 132; and of a Francifcan, who died in 
Somberete, aged 117, making preachings to the people, 
until the laft month of his lite. ‘* We could (fays this 
author) make a long catalogue of thofe, who, in the two 
centuries paft, have exceeded one hundred ycars of life, 
in thefe countries :=--particularly among the Indians, there 
are not a few, who reach go and roo years; preferving, 
to old age, their ‘hair- black, their teeth firm, and their 
countenance frefh.”—-Don Ulloa (in his Noticias Ameti+ 
canas) fays, that, in general, the American Indians live 
to a great age.---This longevity, attended in general with 
uninterrupted health, is thought, by fome writers, to be the 
confequence in part of their vacancy from ferious thought 
and employment, joined alfo with the robuft texture and 
conformation of their bodily organs. If, continues this 
writer, the Indians did not deftroy one another, in their 
almoft perpetual wars-- and if their habits of intoxication 
were not fo univerfal and incurable, they would. be, of all 
the races of men who inhabit the globe, the moft likely: 
to extend, not only the bounds, but the enjoyments of ani- 
mal life, to their utmoft duration. 
In the courfe of thefe obfervations, I have endeavoured 
to fhew---and, I flatter myfelf, not altogether without fuc— 
cefs,---that the probabilities of life, zz all its fages, from 
its commencement to the utmoft poflible verge of its du- 
ration, are higher in thefe United States, than in fuch Eu- 
ropean countries, as are efteemed the moft favorable to life. 
And, if this pofition be well founded, it follows---that the 
bodily conftitutions of the American people are proporti- 
onably healthful. For, although it may be deemed pro- 
blematical by fome, whether an extraordinary degree of 
vigor, in the fyftem of the human body, affords a greater 
probability of attaining to extreme old age, than, ceterzs 
paribus, 
