Inducements fo the Eating of Human Flc/h. nS^ 



fcelow the foil which feems to carry them ; and if they arc 

 found below the foil, to fink a vertical well to afcertain the 

 truth of the fyftems which fuppofe them to have been raifed 

 from the interior parts of the earth through the upper ftrata* 



[To be continued.] 



V III, Ohfer-vat'ions on the different Inducerncnts to the Eating 

 of Human Flcjh. £>■ J. de Louuexro *=. 



T 



X HE firft inducement which can lead men to this excefs 

 js extreme hunger ; but however pardonable it may be under 

 fuch circumftances, if the flefli ufed be that of dead bodies, 

 it is highly deteftable on account of the confequences. During 

 a dreadful famine in India, w^hich deftroyed more than a 

 hundred tJioufand perfons, when the roads and ftreets were 

 covered with dead bodies, bccaufe people had not fufficient 

 ftrength to inter them, I faw fevcral have the refolutipn to 

 preferve their lives by this difgufting food; butfomeof them, 

 though not many, found it fo delicious that when the famine 

 was at an end they retained fuch an irrcfiftible propenfity to 

 human flefli that they lay in wait for the living in order to 

 devour them. Befides others, there was a mountaineer who 

 concealed himfelf in a forell near the highway, where he 

 ufed to caft a rope, with a noofe, over the heads of the paf- 

 fcngers, whom he afterwards cut to pieces to gratify his un- 

 natural appetite. He had killed many perfons in this man- 

 ner, but he was at length caught and executed. At the 

 fame time, and owing to the fame caufe, a woman ufed to 

 go out for the exprefs purpofe of carrying away children who 

 had ftrayed from their homes. She flopped up their nofc 



The author of this paper is an eminent Portuguefe naturalift. A 

 copy of it was given by the author from "his own manufcript, never pub- 

 lished, to Dr.G. H, Langfdorf, pliyfician to Prince Cliriftian of Waldeck 

 at LiHon, on the 5th of January 1798, who trandated it into German, and 

 lent it to Profeflbr Voigt of Jena. See his Magazin Jiir den nurjlen xuf. 

 tun4 (Ur ^aiurkunde, VoJ. I. part 3. 



