CCXXXIX 



oplinpfons pooplo nrf> not more iiroIiCic l.lian oflicrs. Tii (tirpiilnml niid 

 nmong'sfc the Es(iuiin;iux, says I'^orstcr, where the natives live ehielly on 

 Cisli, seals, and oily animal snhstances, the women seldom bear children 

 (ifteiier than three or four times. Five or six births arc reckoned a very 

 extraordinary instance. The Passcrais, wliom we saw, had not above 

 two or three children belonging' to each family, though their common 

 food consisted of mussels, fisli and seal flesh. The New Zcalandcrs 

 absolutely feed on fish, and yet no more than tliree or four children are 

 found in the most prolific families." Amongst the Andamanesc, whose 

 chief diet may be said to be fresh fish and pork, it is very rare to find 

 so many as three children in one family; and as they do not indulge in 

 such early marriages as the natives of India, that reason camiot 

 be adduced to account for their paucity of oflspring. In Burma, it is 

 sometimes advanced that the chief reason why the Burmese are not more 

 prolific is because they consume so much fish, and they cannot be con- 

 sidered, in comparison with other Asiatic nations, as given to very early 

 marriages. The least prolific races I have personally seen appear to be 

 the Nairs of Malabar, tlie Burmese, and the Andamaiiese ; the first never 

 touch fish, but their ladies are espoused to tlie whole of their own and 

 the males of any superior caste. The Burmese wives are faithful to one 

 husband so long as he lives in the ueighbourhood, or is only tem- 

 porarily absent. The Andamanesc arc reputed to bo very particular 

 in only having one, and not changing him so long as they are 

 both alive. The Nairs and Burmese are well off and have good 

 domiciles; the Andamanese live more like wild beasts in the jungles 

 than human beings, are destitute of clothes and houses, and are 

 alternately feasting and pinched with hunger as food is common or 

 the reverse. 



415. For the natives of the plains of Asia it appears very qnestion- 

 FUl, diet probably more suit- '"^'^'^ whether ficsh fish is not more suitable, 

 able to tlio inhabitant of tbo as iood, than the fiesh of shccp, pigs and 

 plains of Asia than that of poultry. Anyhow, in certain situations, as the 

 "''""■""''• Malabar Coast, the Andaman Islands, and 



Burma, where sheep deteriorate so rapidly, healthy indigenous 

 fresh fish must be more suitaldc, as diet for natives, than the 

 exotic sheep. lu Europe, mutton appears to be superior to 

 fish ; thus, during Lent, persons who change irom meat to fish arc asserted 

 to comjilain of debility, which may be duo to a sudden alteration in their 

 diet. Jockeys, however, when " wasting" themselves, arc said to take 

 fish instead of meat. But fish-eating people in many parts of the 

 world are models of strength, and a fish diet can hardly be asserted 

 as conducing to the deterioration of the physique of races. Opinions 

 however, are divided as to the nutritious qualities of fish in northern 



climates. Lecnwenhoek (Select IFor/is, i., p. 164) observes : " At 



a town in my neigldjourhood, where the people get their livino- by 

 fishing, and feed principally on fish, especially when they are on tlio 

 sea, the men are very robust and healthy even to a great age. * * It 

 is also my opinion that a fish diet is more wholesome than flesh, parti- 

 cularly to those persons who do not use much exercise, because fish 

 is more easily comminuted and digested iu the stomach and bowels 

 than tlcsh." 



