Chap. VIII. A N T I E N T iM E T A P H Y S I C S. g; 



ferved*, very delicious, they appear to have preferred it to all other ; 

 and Charlevoix mentions a Cacique who made it his ordinary diet 1". 

 And not only did they eat men when they could get them, but they 

 ate other animals of prey, fuch as tygers $, which no other animal 

 of prey does. Monkies too they ate; and fuch was their paflion for 

 animal food, that they ate worms, moles, vipers, and reptiles of e- 

 very kind §. There was no faith nor honefty in them, nor had 

 they any fenfe of the Pulchrum and Honefium in actions or fenti- 

 ments, which, as Polybius has very well obferved, only comes after 

 men are civilifed, and live under a regular governmen:. 



Their barbarous difpofitions were inflamed and made much more 

 brutal by the ufe of a fermented liquor, which they made of rice, 

 and called chica. For they were fo unhappy, that though they had 

 not learned the common arts of life, they had invented, or what I 

 rather believe to be the truth, had learned from the Spaniards the art 

 of making this intoxicating liquor ; of which they drank to fuch ex- 

 cefs, that, in their drunkennefs, they did things which Charlevoix doe? 

 not chufe to mentioa. 



As to their genius and natural parts, Charlevoix tell us, that when 



the Jefuits came among them they were quite dull, and unable to 



comprehend any thing that they could not perceive by their fenfes ; fo 



that the Jefuits were in doubt, whether they ought to admit them 



to the participation of any facrament, except that of baptifm, and 



confulted their fuperiors the Bifhops upon the fubject : But they 



were foon -convinced that they had the capacity, when properly 



taught, of learning any thing \. 



I 

 * Page 62. of this volume, 

 "t Charlevoix, vol. I. p. 365. 

 X Ibid. p. 387. 

 S Ibid. 

 I Ibid. p. 240. and 241. 



