7166. on animal and vegetable food.  _—- ‘Dee. 5. 
‘en another in the choicest gifts. She has presented 
‘them not only with the invaluable kinds offpalm, and 
the still more prolific bread fruit trees, and sago 
trees; has not only bestowed upon them a multi- 
tude of succulent roots, as potatoes, manioc, ig- 
names, and many others, but has granted them like- 
wise millet, maize, and especially rice ; pure vege- 
tables, which yield fruit a hundred, two hundred fold 
and more, and of which the rice affords at least two 
harvests in the year. By these her gifts, as by the 
great variety of refrefhing fruits which nature has 
bestowed on the torrid zone in preference to all others, 
the plainly pointed out to man what kinds of food 
fhe had allotted to his use; and man, in this instance, . 
has obeyed the parental suggestions fhe gave him for 
his good. The original inhabitants of the torrid zone, 
indeed, from their insatiable voraciousnefs, sometimes 
devour the raw or putrid flefh, even of ravenous beasts, 
-or of elephants, afses, and horses, or likewise putrid 
fifh ; but their chief nourifhment is. always rice, or 
other vegetables; and with these they join only so 
much animal food as is necefsary to abate the too 
great acidity arising from the constant use of vege- 
table diet. The generality of the pagan Hindoos take 
no flefh meats at all; and these haters of flefh are 
neverthelefs no lefs healthy, or perhaps healthier, 
than the other inbabitants of Hindostan, who com- 
monly eat animal food*. The same may be advan- 
ced of the Japanese, who (fifh excepted) abstain 
from animal food}. If the Hindoos are lefs long. 
* Rogers, vol. ie p. 18; Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 30. 
+} Description of the natiors-of Rvafsia, vol. i. p. 10; 12- 
