38 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



gether naked *. So true it is, what I before obferved, that the Hu- 

 man Body can bear any extremity of cold. 



The next thing I mentioned was the ufe of Fire. This the Oran Ou- 

 tan has not. This the inhabitants of the Ladrone or Marianne Iflands 

 had not when Magellan firft difcovered them; and, when they firftfaw 

 it kindled by the Spaniards, they fled from it, as from a monfter that 

 would devour them as it devoured the wood f. The memory of 

 the introdudion of Fire among the inhabitants of Greece is preferved 

 in the fable of Prometheus, who contrived, fome way or other, to 

 o-et it from the Sun. The antient Egyptians had the fame opinion 

 of Fire as thofe inhabitants of the Ladrone Iflands, and Herodotus 

 relates it almoft in the fame words J. This is another inftance of 

 the wonderful agreement betwixt antient hiftory and the relations of 

 modern travellers ; a kind of reading, which many, calling them- 

 fclves philofophers and fcholars, afTed to defpife. 



If the reader will allow me to quote myfelf as a traveller, I will 

 Inform him, that the wild girl whom I faw in France, and whom I 

 have mentioned fo often in the Firft Volume of the Origin and Pro- 

 o-refs of Language, told me, that, when fhe was firft houfed, fhe 

 could hardly bear the air of a clofe room ; but, as to Fire, it was her 

 abhorrence and her terror. 



At this day, the Efquimaux, upon the fide of Hudfon's Bay, 

 though inhabiting one of the coldeft countries of the world, ne- 

 ver kindle a Fire, except to light their lamps of fifh-oil, which 

 give them light in their long dreary winter nights. And, as 

 the New Hollanders have no houfes, they can make very little ufe 



of 

 • See Harris's Voyages, Vol. i. p. 16. 

 t Hiftory of the Works of the Learned, Vol. 2. p. 270. May 1700. 



Herod. lib. 3. cap 16 



