364 November 1748. 



told me that they had preferved them to a 

 very great age. Bengtfon affured me, that 

 his father at the age of feventy, cracked 

 peach ftones and the black walnuts with 

 his teeth, notwithstanding their great hard- 

 nefs, which at this time no body dares to 

 venture at that age. This confirms what I 

 have before faid, for at that time the ufe of 

 tea was not yet known in North America. 



No difeafe is more common here, than 

 that which the Englifi call fever and ague, 

 which is fometimes quotidian, tertian or 

 quartan. But it often happens, that a per- 

 fon who has had a tertian ague, after lofing 

 it for a week or two, gets a quotidian ague 

 in its ftead, which after a while again 

 changes into a tertian. The fever com- 

 monly attacks the people at the end of Au- 

 gufty or beginning of September, and com- 

 monly continues during autumn and win- 

 ter till towards fpring, when it ceafes en- 

 tirely. 



Strangers who arrive here, common- 

 ly are attacked by this ficknefs the firfl or 

 fecond year after their arrival ; and it is 

 more violent upon them, than upon the 

 natives, fo that they fometimes die of it ; 

 but if they efcape the firft time, they have 

 the advantage of not being vifited again the 

 next year, or perhaps never any more. It is 



commonly 



