Chap. II. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 93 



three, filli, fiefh, and vegetables. But, though he can live upon 

 any one, or all of thefc, yet one of them may be more natural, and 

 more agreeable to his conftitution, than another. The leaft natural of 

 any of them, I think, is filh, for a land animal ; and, accordingly, 

 we fee that the Greeks, at the time of the Trojan war, did not eat 

 firh, unlefs they were forced to it by extreme hunger *. As to fle(h. 



It 



fo that our people, who trafBck with them for train-oil and whale-bone, can 

 hardly bear the fmell of it. As to land-animals, they fometimes kill deer in 

 the winter time ; but, as the Indians carry on a cruel and implacable war 

 with them, killing them wherever they find them, they dare not venture far 

 from the fea, and have very few habitations upon the continent, but live chiefly, 

 during the winter, in the iflands in the Bay. They have, therefore, very little 

 ufe of the flefli of land-animals ; and what they ufe of that kind is all pre- 

 ferved in the fame way as their fea food, and eaten with the fame fauce : And as 

 to vegetables, they never tafle them. They fhow, therefore, I think, more than 

 any other people in the world, how foft and pliable the Proraethian clav is, and 

 how it can fuit itfelf to the moft unnatural life that can be imagined for a land ani- 

 mal. The effedl, however, of fuch a life, and particularly of their diet, is, that their 

 ftefh is almoft as foft as the blubber upon which they feed ; and they are but weak and 

 puny animals : Neverthelefs they are very lively and alert, Cng, and dance ; and my 

 author fays, he believes, that they are liable to as hw difeafes, and live as long, as we 

 do ; and BufFon fays that they live very long (Vol. iii. p. 486.). And the Green- 

 landers, who live pretty much in the fame way, he fays, live to an extreme old 

 age, and are liable hardly to any difeafe, (Ibid. p. 377.), I think, however, it is 

 impoflible, by the nature of things, that the Efquimaux fhould be fo healthy 

 and long lived as they would be, if they lived in a more natural way. 



The moral of this hiftory of the Efquimaux is, that, though living in the way 

 in which the neceffity of their fituation and circumftances oblige them to live, they 

 cannot be faid to be a happy people ; yet, as they are not vitious, nor difeafed in any 

 decree, neither can they be faid to be unhappy, (for it is only vice and difeafe that 

 make men miferable;)* and I know many men in this ifland, reputed very happy, 

 ■who, if they were to change lives with the Efquimaux, would, in my opinion 

 make a very good bargain. 



* This -was the cafe of UlyfTes and his crew, when they were confined to the 

 Ifland of the bun. See OdyfT. xii. verf. 331. 



