Chap. XVI, ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 211 



the Spaniards for nothing, though the cold of the country was fo great, 

 that fome of the Spaniards are faid to have died of it*. And, as to the 

 cold bath, there is an example of the efFedts of it, which are really 

 wonderful upon the Carraibs, a people inhabiting the Carribec 

 iflands in the Weft Indies, called by the French the Antilles. Of 

 thefe I have fpoken in Vol. III. of this workf, where I have faid 

 that they are prodigious drunkards, getting drunk, men, women, 

 and children, very frequently with a ftrong liquor which they have 

 learned to make of an herb they call Manniock ; and they are lia- 

 ble to many difeafes, particularly the Great Pox, which is common 

 among them in its higheft degree of malignity, and is tranfmitted 

 from the parents to the children, as they have no radical cure for it, 

 but only palliatives ; notwithftanding all which, we are told that 

 they live very long, even to the age of 100 and upwards ; and there 

 is an author, one Mr Rochford, who, in his hiftory of the Antilles 

 iflands, fays, that the ordinary life of the Carraibs is 150 years %. 



That man is by nature fitted to endure the cold when he is naked, 

 is evident from what we fee every day of ourfelves j and that is 

 the face naked. Upon that fubjedl there is a very good ftory 

 told of Anacharfis the Scythian, who had a curioiity and love of 

 learning, which made him come to Athens to converfe with the 

 philofophers there ; where he lived as he did in his own country, 

 ihat is naked. Being afked, by an Athenian, how he could bear fo 

 great a cold as then was at Athens, when it happened to be winter, 

 he anfwered the queftion by aflcing another at the Athenian, Whether 

 he felt any cold in his face? The Athenian anfwered. That he did not. 

 Neither, (ays Anacharfis, do I feel any in my body ; ior I am all 

 face. Indeed^ I can fee no reafon why the fore part of our head 

 ihould, by cuftom and habit, be made to endure the cold fo cnJily, and 

 not the back part of our head and our whoie body: For we fee every 

 day boys in our ftreets going about with iheir necks and a good part of 



D u 2 their 



* Vol. V. p. 13. t P- 87- 88. + P. 13. and lan of Vol. V. 



